Patent ID: 7526571

Claim:
A method for operating a network node to forward a packet employing a first addressing scheme through a label switched network employing a second addressing scheme, said method comprising: receiving said first addressing scheme packet at a node having an address corresponding to said first addressing scheme and an address corresponding to said second addressing scheme; extracting destination address information according to said first addressing scheme from said first addressing scheme packet; selecting a label stack for use in forwarding said packet through said label switched network employing said second addressing scheme and a next hop into said label switched network based on said destination address information, said label stack including a second level label assigned by an egress node of said label switched network; and forwarding said first addressing scheme packet along with said label stack to said next hop without encapsulation within a packet incorporating address information specified by said second addressing scheme; wherein said first addressing scheme and said second addressing scheme comprise different versions of an IP addressing scheme.