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. 06, 2013
Filed:
Mar. 15, 2010
Shaun Botha, Seattle, WA (US);
Mark D. Bertoglio, Seattle, WA (US);
Shaun Botha, Seattle, WA (US);
Mark D. Bertoglio, Seattle, WA (US);
Twisted Pair Solutions, Inc., Seattle, WA (US);
Abstract
A system, apparatus, article of manufacture, and method provides one or more distributed convergence nodes referred to as 'Supernodes', each of which is embodied as a functional technology component within an application that automatically determines whether said component should become 'active' and assume the responsibility of forwarding IP multicast data present on a LAN (which supports IP multicast communication) to a “Routing Supernode” via a WAN (which does not support IP multicast communication). The Routing Supernode, in turn, is responsible for forwarding that traffic to other Supernodes present on other LANs. The traffic sent to and from the Routing Supernode is sent via unicast communication. All Supernodes are responsible not only for forwarding traffic present on their respective LAN across the WAN to a Routing Supernode, but they are also responsible for forwarding traffic received over the WAN from the Routing Supernode onto their own respective LANs. An election process determines which device in a LAN is to operate as a SuperNode.