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:
Sep. 20, 2005
Filed:
Jun. 20, 2001
Frank Hundscheidt, Kerkrade, NL;
Heino Hameleers, Kerkrade, NL;
Frank Hundscheidt, Kerkrade, NL;
Heino Hameleers, Kerkrade, NL;
Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ), Stockholm, SE;
Abstract
A message is distributed from a source to one or more hosts in a communications network that comprises one or more multicast capable routers. To do this, a first multicast capable router generates a first table that identifies sub-branches connected to the first multicast capable router, and for each identified sub-branch, includes membership-related information from which it can be determined how many hosts are part of the sub-branch and (optionally) a metric associated with each of the sub-branch hosts. The multicast capable router then receives the message to be distributed and a first value, N1, that specifies how many hosts the message is to be distributed to, and uses the first table to identify N1 hosts and their respective sub-branches. It distributes the message to each of the identified sub-branches along with a second value that specifies how many hosts within the sub-branch the message is to be distributed to.