Push network
First Claim
1. A push network comprising:
- means for copying information held in a packet sent from an information providing terminal and for generating a plurality of packets with the same information;
means for distributing the plurality of packets thereby generated to a plurality of user terminals;
means within said information proving terminal for adding to a packet a content identifier;
wherein the information provided by said information providing terminal is assigned a unique content identifier or both the content identifier and the category identifier for identifying the category to which the content of the packet belongs;
wherein the distributing means comprises means for deciding, in accordance with the content identifier, whether or not to distribute that packet to a given user terminal;
wherein the decision means includes;
a table, provided in correspondence with a destination, in which content identifier related information has been registered; and
means for passing a packet if the content identifier added to that packet matches the content identifier related information registered in the table;
wherein the decision means comprises means which, if no packet having the same content identifier as that of passed packets arrives within a fixed time interval after the final packet has passed, deletes from the table the information relating to that content identifier; and
wherein the information providing terminal comprises means for transmitting, within the aforementioned fixed time interval, a dummy packet to which a prescribed content identifier has been added.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
To transfer push service traffic efficiently, a packet is given a content identifier for identifying the content of the packet, or is given one or both of this content identifier and a category identifier for identifying the category to which the content belongs; and a user registers in advance in the distribution network content identifier related information or one or both of this content identifier related information and category identifier related information, said information relating to content and/or categories that the user wishes to have sent; and the distribution network passes content, or one or both of content and category, wanted by a downstream user. A table for filtering is set by taking into account content identifier related information that has been notified by a user. To make effective use of memory resources in the table in each node of the distribution network, a content identifier, or one or both of a content identifier and a category identifier, that has been registered in the table but which has become unnecessary, is deleted. Moreover, to ensure that a decrease in throughput at some packet distribution destinations does not affect the throughput of the entire network, means is provided for temporarily storing a packet at a transit node, so that when a packet transfer destination is experiencing decreased throughput, a decrease in throughput at transit nodes upstream of the site of the throughput decrease can be avoided by storing packets in this temporary storage means.
-
Citations
29 Claims
-
1. A push network comprising:
-
means for copying information held in a packet sent from an information providing terminal and for generating a plurality of packets with the same information;
means for distributing the plurality of packets thereby generated to a plurality of user terminals;
means within said information proving terminal for adding to a packet a content identifier;
wherein the information provided by said information providing terminal is assigned a unique content identifier or both the content identifier and the category identifier for identifying the category to which the content of the packet belongs;
wherein the distributing means comprises means for deciding, in accordance with the content identifier, whether or not to distribute that packet to a given user terminal;
wherein the decision means includes;
a table, provided in correspondence with a destination, in which content identifier related information has been registered; and
means for passing a packet if the content identifier added to that packet matches the content identifier related information registered in the table;
wherein the decision means comprises means which, if no packet having the same content identifier as that of passed packets arrives within a fixed time interval after the final packet has passed, deletes from the table the information relating to that content identifier; and
wherein the information providing terminal comprises means for transmitting, within the aforementioned fixed time interval, a dummy packet to which a prescribed content identifier has been added.
-
-
2. A push network comprising:
-
means for copying information held in a packet sent from an information providing terminal and for generating a plurality of packets with the same information;
means for distributing the plurality of packets thereby generated to a plurality of user terminals;
means within said information proving terminal for adding to a packet a content identifier;
wherein the information provided by said information providing terminal is assigned a unique content identifier or both the content identifier and the category identifier for identifying the category to which the content of the packet belongs;
wherein the distributing means comprises means for deciding, in accordance with the content identifier, whether or not to distribute that packet to a given user terminal;
wherein the decision means includes;
a table, provided in correspondence with a destination, in which content identifier related information has been registered; and
means for passing a packet if the content identifier added to that packet matches the content identifier related information registered in the table; and
wherein the decision means comprises means for deleting content identifier related information from the table when it receives a packet giving notification that receiving has been completed, said packet having been sent from a node or user terminal that has received packets to which the corresponding content identifier has been added.
-
-
3. A push network comprising:
-
means for copying information held in a packet sent from an information providing terminal and for generating a plurality of packets with the same information;
means for distributing the plurality of packets thereby generated to a plurality of user terminals;
means within said information proving terminal for adding to a packet a content identifier;
wherein the information provided by said information providing terminal is assigned a unique content identifier or both the content identifier and the category identifier for identifying the category to which the content of the packet belongs;
wherein the distributing means comprises means for deciding, in accordance with the content identifier, whether or not to distribute that packet to a given user terminal;
wherein the decision means includes;
a table, provided in correspondence with a destination, in which content identifier related information has been registered; and
means for passing a packet if the content identifier added to that packet matches the content identifier related information registered in the table;
wherein means is provided for registering content identifier related information in the table in accordance with notification from a user; and
wherein a separate registering means is provided for each decision means. - View Dependent Claims (4, 5, 6, 7)
-
-
8. A push network comprising:
-
means for copying information held in a packet sent from an information providing terminal and for generating a plurality of packets with the same information;
means for distributing the plurality of packets thereby generated to a plurality of user terminals;
means within said information proving terminal for adding to a packet a content identifier or both the content identifier and a category identifier;
wherein the information provided by said information providing terminal is assigned a unique content identifier or both the content identifier and the category identifier for identifying the category to which the content of the packet belongs;
wherein the distributing means comprises means for deciding, in accordance with the content identifier, or in accordance with one or both of the content identifier and category identifier, whether or not to distribute that packet to a given user terminal;
wherein means is provided for temporarily storing a packet which the decision means has decided to distribute; and
wherein the temporary storage means comprises means for temporarily storing a packet to be transferred to a transfer destination when the packet acceptance rate of that packet transfer destination is less than a prescribed rate.
-
-
9. A push network comprising:
-
means for copying information held in a packet sent from an information providing terminal and for generating a plurality of packets with the same information;
means for distributing the plurality of packets thereby generated to a plurality of user terminals;
means within said information proving terminal for adding to a packet a content identifier or both the content identifier and a category identifier;
wherein the information provided by said information providing terminal is assigned a unique content identifier or both the content identifier and the category identifier for identifying the category to which the content of the packet belongs;
wherein the distributing means comprises means for deciding, in accordance with the content identifier, or in accordance with one or both of the content identifier and category identifier, whether or not to distribute that packet to a given user terminal; and
wherein a plurality of information providing terminals are provided, and there is provided means which causes a token to circulate among these terminals, this token giving permission to an information providing terminal to send; and
means is also provided which causes content to be sent from the information providing terminal that has received the token.
-
-
10. A push network comprising:
-
means for copying information held in a packet sent from an information providing terminal and for generating a plurality of packets with the same information;
means for distributing the plurality of packets thereby generated to a plurality of user terminals;
means within said information proving terminal for adding to a packet a content identifier or both the content identifier and a category identifier;
wherein the information provided by said information providing terminal is assigned a unique content identifier or both the content identifier and the category identifier for identifying the category to which the content of the packet belongs;
wherein the distributing means comprises means for deciding, in accordance with the content identifier, or in accordance with one or both of the content identifier and category identifier, whether or not to distribute that packet to a given user terminal; and
wherein transit nodes are arranged hierarchically between information providing terminals and user terminals, and a plurality of information providing terminals or transit nodes are provided in each layer of this hierarchy;
wherein each layer of the hierarchy comprises;
means for collecting traffic information for that hierarchical layer;
means which gives sending permission to an information providing terminal and/or transit node in accordance with the traffic information collected by this collecting means; and
means which causes content to be sent from the information providing terminal and/or transit node that has received sending permission.
-
-
11. A push network comprising:
-
means for copying information held in a packet sent from an information providing terminal and for generating a plurality of packets with the same information;
means for distributing the plurality of packets thereby generated to a plurality of user terminals;
means within said information proving terminal for adding to a packet a content identifier or both the content identifier and a category identifier;
wherein the information provided by said information providing terminal is assigned a unique content identifier or both the content identifier and the category identifier for identifying the category to which the content of the packet belongs;
wherein the distributing means comprises means for deciding, in accordance with the content identifier, or in accordance with one or both of the content identifier and category identifier, whether or not to distribute that packet to a given user terminal;
wherein means is provided for adding to a packet one or both of a content identifier and a category identifier; and
the distributing means comprises means for deciding, in accordance with this content identifier and/or category identifier, whether or not to distribute that packet to a given user terminal; and
wherein the decision means includes a table, provided in correspondence with a destination, in which has been registered information relating to a category identifier and/or to a content identifier corresponding to this category identifier; and
also includes means which passes a packet if the category identifier given to that packet matches the category identifier related information registered in the table, and if the content identifier given to the packet matches the content identifier related information registered in the table in correspondence with this category identifier.- View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29)
-
Specification