Patent ID: 7082468

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving a data signal formatted according to a data communication protocol at a software data communication platform, the software data communication platform to support one or more data communication protocols; determining if the data communication protocol of the data signal is supported by a hardware data communication platform, the hardware data communication platform to support a data communication protocol not supported by the software data communication platform, the hardware data communication platform having a filter engine with a filter path to process a data signal for routing and a by-pass path to route the data signal through the filter engine without processing the data signal by the filter engine; and if the data communication protocol of the data signal is supported by the hardware data communication platform, indicating to the hardware data communication platform to receive the data signal at the filter path to process the data signal with the hardware data communication platform, or else to receive the data signal at the by-pass path to process the data signal with the software data communication platform.