Patent ID: 7814478

Claim:
A method of updating an application program in memory of a network device, the memory having a length L between memory addresses A 1 and A 4 , and including memory addresses A 2 and A 3 located between the memory addresses A 1 and A 4 , the method comprising: maintaining, in the memory, storage of the application program having a length L 1 from the memory address A 1 to a memory address A 2 −1; performing a download procedure to receive an updated application program having a length L 2 which is greater than the length L 1 , wherein the sum of the lengths L 1 and L 2 is equal to the length L; while receiving the updated application program: storing the length L 1 of the updated application program in the memory from the memory address A 3 until reaching the memory address A 4 , the memory address A 3 being located at the memory address A 2 plus the difference between the lengths L 2 and L 1 ; continue storing the remaining length L 2 −L 1 of the updated application program from the memory address A 2 to a memory address A 3 −1; and copying over the application program beginning at the memory address A 1 with the updated application program beginning at the memory address A 3 .