CONTEST
Competed
$5,000
This contest is closed.
Problem
Patexia is looking for descriptions of a method to manage the rate that a network node broadcasts a message to a portion of the nodes it’s connected to in order to avoid sending an overwhelming burst of network traffic. The method should accomplish this by broadcasting to a subset of recipients, waiting, then repeating the broadcast/wait cycle until the node transmits to all recipients.
Submitted documents describing this system must be:
- filed or published before 05/23/1997
- not on the known references list
The entire submission must describe a system where:
- the network of nodes are all directly connected to each other in some manner either through a dedicated trunk or a virtual circuit (see Figure 1 below)
- a node will recognize an event that requires it to send a message to other nodes that might be affected by the event
- that node will identify the other nodes that are affected by this event, which must only be a fraction of all the nodes it is connected to
- that node will then broadcast the message to only the affected nodes
- however, this broadcast will be limited to some predetermined maximum rate by broadcasting the message to a subset of affected nodes, waiting for a predetermined time delay, then repeating this broadcast/wait cycle until the node has finished broadcasting to all affected nodes
Figure 1 of US 877 showing each node (12) connected to the other nodes either through dedicated trunks (14) or virtual circuits (16)
This contest is for a prior art search for US Patent 6,130,877, with a focus on claims 1, 4, 8, and 11, in the context of a network systems administration standpoint of limiting the amount of traffic with which an individual node can flood the overall network.
Questions
| # | Question | Value |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Is the reference either a US patent filed, a foreign patent published, or a non-patent document published before May 23rd, 1997? | T/F |
| 2 | Is the reference generally about managing the rate that a network node broadcasts a message to a portion of the nodes it’s connected to in order to avoid sending an overwhelming burst of network traffic? | T/F |
| 3 | Does the reference show a data communication network where each node has a direct connection to the other nodes in the network (e.g. through a dedicated trunk or a virtual circuit)? | 5 |
| 4 | Does the reference show that a node can broadcast a signal by (1) recognizing an event, (2) determining the network nodes affected by the event, and (3) broadcasting a message about this event to the selected affected nodes? | 5 |
| 5 | (4a) Does the reference further show that the selected nodes at step (2) are a fraction of the total number of connected nodes? | 30 |
| 6 | (4b) Does the reference explicitly use the term “broadcasting” to refer to the act of sending the message at step (3)? | 5 |
| 7 | (4c) Does the reference further show that the node controls the rate of broadcast by capping it to be no faster than a predetermined rate? | 45 |
| 8 | (7a) Does the reference further show that the rate of broadcast is controlled by (a) sending to a portion of the affected nodes, (b) waiting for a predetermined time delay, then repeating steps (a) and (b) until all the affected nodes from step (2) are broadcasted to? | 10 |
Additional Notes
This is a Prior Art Search contest aimed at determining if a patent idea was known and publicly available before a patent was filed.
+5 bonus points will be awarded for non-patent literature and for foreign language references.
This contest will close on Wednesday, May 31st, 2015 at 11:59 PM PST.
Please review the Contest Rules. For more information on how to submit to this Contest type, please read the Intro to Prior Art Search page.
