The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jan. 09, 2001
Filed:
Oct. 30, 1997
Norman Eugene Cox, Raleigh, NC (US);
Kenneth J. Christensen, Tampa, FL (US);
Jim P. Ervin, Raleigh, NC (US);
Richard Colbert Matlack, Jr., Raleigh, NC (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A route switching layer is provided to end stations on a local area network (LAN) segment between the network layer protocol stack and the LAN adapter device driver. The route switching layer reads the network layer protocol header in a data frame queued for transmission. If the data frame is destined for a station on a different LAN segment, the route switching layer compares the network layer address with entries stored in a local address table. If a match occurs, the route switching layer inserts the corresponding data link layer address from the table in the data link header that is appended to the data frame. The data frame is then transmitted directly from source to destination end station by a hardware switch. If an address table match does not occur, the source station route switching layer sends a query to a route server device for the data link layer address corresponding to the network layer address of the destination end station. The route server sends a response to the source station route switching layer which then stores the destination address information in the local address table.