Patent ID: 7554920

Claim:
A method to facilitate multicast transmission, the method comprising: receiving a negative acknowledgment from a receiver identifying a sequence number of a missing packet of the multicast transmission received by the receiver; transmitting a confirmation of receipt of the negative acknowledgment; setting a back-off time and a linger time based on a location of the sequence number within a transmit window maintained by the sender for retaining recently transmitted data of the multicast transmission for data repairs, wherein the response back-off time decreases as the sequence number approaches a trailing edge of the transmit window; sending repair data for the missing packet after expiration of the back-off time; waiting for expiration of the linger time after sending the repair data for the missing packet and ignoring other negative acknowledgments for the missing packet received during the linger time; and adjusting a send rate using a predetermined tolerance level, the tolerance level based on a ratio of repair data packets sent versus all data packets sent.