Invalidity dossier
US 5610745
Method and apparatus for tracking buffer availability
Current assignee: Brocade Communications Systems LLC
Added 9/23/2026, 4:29:28 PM
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Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview — US5610745A
Title: Method and apparatus for tracking buffer availability
Patent number / application: US5610745A; Application US08/548,505
Inventor: Dwayne Bennett
Original assignee: Hewlett Packard Co. (later recorded assignee: Brocade Communications Systems LLC, per the source listing)
Key dates: Priority and filing date 1995-10-26; granted and published 1997-03-11; anticipated expiration 2015-10-26; legal status "Expired – Lifetime"
Purpose. The invention relates to methods and apparatus for tracking the availability of a memory buffer within a Fibre Channel network port. In Fibre Channel, a switch provides a fabric of interconnected fabric-ports (F_ports) linking node-ports (N_ports) on attached devices. Class 2 transfers allocate a path through the switch for each single frame, requiring a memory mechanism to temporarily store incoming frames before routing. Receive-buffer allocation on an F_port is typically dictated by the maximum number of frames an N_port may send without an indication that more receive buffers are available; a switch may meanwhile be waiting to forward frames to a busy destination N_port. The patent addresses allowing an N_port to keep sending even when a defined maximum has been reached.
Plain-language scope. Each N_port has a transmit credit counter that is decremented by one per frame transmitted and incremented by one on receipt of a receiver-ready signal; the N_port may transmit only when that counter exceeds zero. Each F_port has receive buffers, a receive credit counter counting frames the N_port may currently transmit for temporary storage while awaiting forwarding, and a smart credit counter counting receive buffers available to receive frames from the N_port.
Not established by the supplied excerpt. The excerpt is partial (it ends mid-sentence) and omits the claims, detailed description, drawings, and any prior-art references; it therefore does not establish the specific claimed scope, embodiments, or dependencies, nor the accuracy of the listed assignees or legal-status assumptions. No prior art, litigation, validity, or ownership-transfer analysis is undertaken here.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5610745](/patent/US5610745)/en
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:44:26 PM
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Litigation summary
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PTAB challenges
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Assignment history
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Prior art
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Obviousness
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Extensions
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Derivative works
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