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:
Feb. 14, 2006
Filed:
Dec. 21, 2001
Shantnu Sharma, Acton, MA (US);
Stephen J. Unger, Allen, TX (US);
Shantnu Sharma, Acton, MA (US);
Stephen J. Unger, Allen, TX (US);
Fujitsu Limited, Kanagawa-ken, JP;
Abstract
A network device monitors the flooding of frames and obtains information to update a port's forwarding table to reduce unnecessary frame flooding. An unknown network address and a count are maintained at a first port, the unknown address being an address for which there is no information identifying another port to which unicast frames containing the address are to be forwarded, the count identifying the number of times frames containing the unknown address have been flooded from the first port to other ports. The count is incremented each time a unicast frame containing the unknown address is flooded from the first port to the other ports. When the count reaches a threshold, it is determined whether there is information at another port that identifies a specific port to which frames containing the unknown address are to be forwarded, and if so then the information is transferred to the first port, whereupon the unknown address becomes known at the first port. Subsequently, unicast frames received at the first port that contain the now known address are forwarded to only the specific port rather than being flooded.