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:
Apr. 01, 2003
Filed:
Mar. 16, 1999
Cisco Technologies, Inc., San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
An apparatus is provided which processes upstream multicast packets and downstream multicast packets in a manner such as to avoid the problem of multicast echo which is generated from a host gateway. For upstream multicast packets, a method is provided which includes: extracting the source network address from the upstream multicast packet; storing said source network address in a table corresponding to the destination host gateway of the packet; and forwarding the upstream multicast packet to the destination network address. For downstream multicast packets, a method is provided which includes: accessing a table corresponding to the host gateway from which the packet was sent; determining if said source network address of the multicast packet is identical to an entry in said table; discarding the multicast packet if said source network address is identical to an entry in said table; and forwarding the multicast packet to said destination network address if said source network address is not identical to an entry in said table. This eliminates any downstream multicast packets which originated from one of the hosts coupled to the apparatus, and thus prevents multicast echo problems from occurring.