Patent ID: 7808930

Claim:
A method for a network router element to clone a first transport tree state of a first transport tree, the method comprising: receiving, by the network router element, a first clone request from a first neighbor router element, wherein the first clone request comprises a request to clone the first transport tree state of the first transport tree to a second transport tree state of a second transport tree, the first neighbor router element transmits the first clone request in response to the first neighbor router element receiving a transport tree join notification from a root network router element of the first transport tree, the transport tree join notification is transmitted by the root network router element in response to the root network router element receiving a modification request to modify the first transport tree and determining that no alternate transport tree exists to satisfy the modification request to modify the first transport tree, the first transport tree is a configured communications path, comprising the network router element and traversing a transport network from an ingress router element to one or more egress router elements, and the network router element is configured to transmit data over the first transport tree; creating the second transport tree state of the second transport tree in response to the first request; and adding a first entry to the second transport tree state, wherein the first entry corresponds to the first neighbor router element.