Patent ID: 7921198

Claim:
A multicast proxy having at least one upstream interface connected to a multicast router and one or more downstream network interfaces connected to one or more hosts, the multicast proxy situated in a data network system between sources that send multicast packets to at least one multicast group address and the one or more hosts that request data from the multicast group address and the sources, the multicast proxy storing for a downstream network interface and multicast group address at least one INCLUDE source record containing information about include source lists derived by data requests made by the one or more hosts and at least one EXCLUDE source record containing information about exclude source lists derived by data requests made by the one or more hosts, the multicast proxy using a host-router multicast routing protocol based on the IGMP (Internet Group Management Protocol) or the MLD (Multicast Listener Discovery) protocol to communicate with the one or more hosts and the multicast router, the multicast proxy maintaining a source-timer for each of the sources in the include and exclude source lists, the multicast proxy transmitting for the downstream network interface and each multicast group address multicast packets to the hosts based on the information of the at least one INCLUDE source record and the at least one EXCLUDE source record, the multicast proxy transmitting for each INCLUDE source of a multicast group address having a source-timer of a value greater than zero multicast packets through the downstream network interface and also transmitting multicast packets of the sources of the multicast group address through the downstream network interface except the EXCLUDE sources having a source timer of a value zero.