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. 27, 2004
Filed:
Apr. 12, 2000
Vincent Gavin, Galway, IE;
Una Quinlan, Dublin, IE;
Denise De Paor, Carraroe, IE;
Tadhg Creedon, Furbo, IE;
Nicholas M Stapleton, Uxbridge, GB;
3Com Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
A stackable network unit which can form a ring with other units has a master mode in which it can place packets on the ring, so that they can be ultimately forwarded from other units, and a repeat mode in which it can make a request for transfer of mastership of the ring, inserting bits in a header of an arbitration packet. If a master unit has completed the transmission of a packet and, preferably, after the required inter-packet gap has elapsed, it has not yet received an arbitration header to permit the making of an arbitration decision it can transmit a subsequent packet. The header information of this packet indicates to the other units that this subsequent packet is part of a burst of packets and the other units should not set requests in the header of this packet because this packet would not be used for arbitration. The master unit indicates the nature of the subsequent packet by setting a sequence number in the header of the packet to distinguish it and following packets in a burst from the 'first' packet which is the one used to pick up requests from the units that may need to become the master unit.