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:
Aug. 17, 2004
Filed:
Dec. 11, 2000
Mudhafar Hassan-Ali, Rohnert Park, CA (US);
Mark W. Cole, Santa Rosa, CA (US);
Kevin A. Jaeger, Glen Ellen, CA (US);
Alcatel, Paris, FR;
Abstract
The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for bridging of Ethernet frames between a subscriber LAN and the ATM network. In accordance with the invention a novel (time window discovery) method is used, with coordination of the network administrator and an access management system to provision a network bridging element or bridge with a set of provisioned devices authorized to forward data packets across the bridge. The bridge is allowed within a time window to learn machine-specific MAC addresses for the provisioned table. After the window is expired, or terminated by access management system, the bridge is switched back to learning mode to learn additional MAC addresses for a learned table in the traditional manner. The devices learned during the learning phase are not authorized to forward data packets across the bridge.