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:
May. 16, 2006
Filed:
Dec. 06, 2001
Benn Bollay, San Francisco, CA (US);
David B. Donahue, Mountain View, CA (US);
Vinai Kolli, Fremont, CA (US);
Thomas Obenhuber, San Francisco, CA (US);
Benn Bollay, San Francisco, CA (US);
David B. Donahue, Mountain View, CA (US);
Vinai Kolli, Fremont, CA (US);
Thomas Obenhuber, San Francisco, CA (US);
The DirecTV Group, Inc., El Segundo, CA (US);
Abstract
A method for communicating across divergent network segments in a network. The network has a first network segment and a second network segment. The first network segment includes a switch that is controlled by a module that has instructions encoding a method. In the method, an ARP request packet is received from a first device. The ARP request packet includes a request to locate a second device. The first device is coupled to the first network segment and the second device is coupled to the second network segment. The ARP request packet is broadcast to the network segments outside of the first network segment and, as a result, a reply from the second network segment is received. The reply is transmitted to the first device, such that in use, ARP tables are modified on the first device and the second device so that future communication between said first device and said second device is enabled using a layer two communication protocol without any requirement for a layer three communication protocol.