Patent ID: 8199636

Claim:
A bridged network system, comprising: a plurality of nodes; wherein each node in the plurality of nodes is coupled to communicate with at least one other node in the plurality of nodes; wherein the plurality of nodes comprise a bridge network between external nodes located externally from the plurality of nodes; and wherein each node of the plurality of nodes is operable to perform the steps of: receiving a packet, wherein the packet comprises a route indicator field further comprising one or two bits that indicates a route; responsive to the packet being received prior to a time of failure along a communication link between two of the plurality of nodes, transmitting the packet along a first route in the system to another node in the plurality of nodes; and responsive to the packet being received after a time of failure along a communication link between two of the plurality of nodes and in response to a change of state of the one or two bits in the route indicator field to indicate an alternate route should be used as a result of a link failure, accessing an internal bypass table to retrieve a second route and transmitting the packet along the second route in the system to another node in the plurality of nodes, wherein the second route differs from the first route and is stored prior to the time of failure and wherein the change of state of the one or two bits is performed by one of the nodes that is responsible for detecting the link failure and for receiving and transmitting the packet.