Interconnection method for digital multimedia communications

Patent 5289461 Issued on February 22, 1994. Estimated Expiration Date:

December 14, 2012. Estimated Expiration Date is calculated based on simple USPTO term provisions. It does not account for terminal disclaimers, term adjustments, failure to pay maintenance fees, or other factors which might affect the term of a patent.

Abstract Claims Description Full Text

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Inventor

de Nijs, Richard H. J.

Application

No. 989669 filed on 12/14/1992

US Classes:

370/360, Switching control370/403, At least one bus is a ring network370/445Carrier sense multiple access (CSMA)

Examiners

Primary: Safourek, Benedict V.

Attorney, Agent or Firm

Keohane; Stephen T.

International Class

H04L 012/42

Abstract

A network controller for dynamically rearranging a LAN to guarantee bandwidth required for multimedia communications comprises a switch for being connected to the transmit and receive ports of each LAN station and a switch controller. The switch comprises an internal switching fabric such that any receive port can be connected to any transmit port of any of the stations. The switch controller, which is connected to the primary LAN, controls the switch so that the LAN may be dynamically reconfigured when, for instance, a LAN node wishes to establish a private session with another LAN node. The request from the node to the controller is sent in a packet being passed around the primary ring. After the data transfer is complete between the two stations and they wish to re-enter the primary ring, one of the stations issues a request to the network controller to reconfigure the network. The request is made by applying a DC voltage to one of the node's receive or transmit line pairs. The network controller detects this signal with DC detection circuitry and reconfigures the network accordingly.