US00784.8253B2 (12) United States Patent (10) Patent No.: US 7,848,253 B2 Mitchem et al. (45) Date of Patent: Dec. 7, 2010 (54) METHOD FORSCORING QUEUED FRAMES (56) References Cited FOR SELECTIVE TRANSMISSION U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS THROUGH ASWITCH 4,683,564 A 7/1987 Young et al. (75) Inventors: W. Jeffrey Mitchem, Westminster, CO (US); Michael E. O'Donnell, (Continued) Westminster, CO (US) FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS (73) Assignee: McData Corporation, San Jose, CA (US) CA 2273291 11, 2000 (*) Notice: Subject to any disclaimer, the term of this (Continued) patent is extended or adjusted under 35 U.S.C. 154(b) by 93 days. OTHER PUBLICATIONS International Searching Authority; European Patent Office; Euro (21) Appl. No.: 12/051,707 pean Search Report (Form EPO 1503) for International application No. EP 0196.5933; Apr. 15, 2009. (22) Filed: Mar 19, 2008 (Continued) (65) Prior Publication Data Primary Examiner Afsar M. Qureshi US 2008/O225859 A1 Sep. 18, 2008 (74) Attorney, Agent, or Firm Hensley Kim & Holzer, LLC (57) ABSTRACT Related U.S. Application Data A method includes determining a priority of each of a plural (63) Continuation of application No. 10/613,627, filed on ity of frames, wherein the priority is a function of an initial Jul. 2, 2003, now Pat. No. 7,382,736, which is a con value dependent on content of each said frame and one or tinuation-in-part of application No. 09/728,452, filed more adjustment values independent of content of each said on Nov.30, 2000, now Pat. No. 6,608,819, which is a frame, and selecting the frame with the highest determined continuation-in-part of application No. 09/228,678, priority for transmission through the device prior to transmis filed on Jan. 12, 1999, now Pat. No. 6,233,236. sion of any other of the frames. A system includes a receiving port configured to receive frames and assign an initial priority (51) Int. C. to each frame, a queue configured to insert queue entries H04L 2/56 (2006.01) associated with received frames on the queue, each queue H04L 2/66 (2006.01) entry being inserted at a queue position based on the initial H04L 2/28 (2006.01) priority assigned to the queue entry, the queue further config (52) U.S. Cl. .................... 370/253; 370/389; 370/395.1; ured to reorder queue entries based on readjusted priorities of 370/395.21: 370/412; 370/509 the queue entries; and a transmitter Switch configured to (58) Field of Classification Search ................. 370/232, transmit the frame having the highest priority before trans 370/253-412,466,468, 413-511; 711/100, mitting any other frame. 711/166; 703/2, 13, 21 See application file for complete search history. 19 Claims, 4 Drawing Sheets ASSIGNINTIAL SCORE - 22 ADJUST INITIAL SCORE - 24 SELECT FRAMES WITH HIGHEST SCORE US 7,848.253 B2 Page 2 U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS 5,740,176 A 4/1998 Gupta et al. 5,751,710 A 5/1998 Crowther et al. 4,782.483. 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