Patent ID: 7720065

Claim:
A method comprising: generating packets from a data stream at a source application; assigning a destination address to each packet of the packets from the data stream; marking a packet of data from the packets from the data stream, where the packet is marked with a packet type such that subsequent nodes determine the relative priority of the packet with respect to other packets from the same data stream based on the packet type marking; and transmitting the marked packet, wherein marking comprises marking a relative priority of each of the packets at the source application to generate priority marked packets such that subsequent nodes determine the relative priority of a packet with respect to other packets from the same data stream based on the packet marking, and wherein subsequent nodes determine the relative priority of the packet relative to other packets from the same packet source and intended for the same destination, where the relative priority is calculated using a packet distress level determined using an average of at least two delay factors multiplied by a safety factor, where the safety factor guards against demotion of priority traffic, where the average of at least two delay factors includes a queue delay for a specific queue, and where the average of at least two delay factors is also multiplied by a weight factor that is determined based on the packet marking, where the weight factor provides a bias for assigning a packet to a higher priority queue for higher priority packets relative to other packets from the same packet source.