Patent ID: 8320372

Claim:
A method for processing fragments received at a node in a communication system, the method comprising: (a) receiving a group of one or more fragments in a received sequence, wherein: (i) the group of one or more fragments corresponds to a packet that was fragmented into a set of fragments having an offset order corresponding to increasing fragment offset values; (ii) the set of fragments comprises an offset-0 fragment and one or more additional fragments; (iii) the offset-0 fragment is the first fragment in the offset order of the set of fragments; and (iv) the group comprises at least one additional fragment that is received before the offset-0 fragment; (b) buffering the group of one or more fragments; (c) analyzing a rule set to match a rule for the buffered group; and (d) applying the matched rule to the buffered group to (i) determine whether the buffered group is to be re-transmitted and (ii) if the buffered group is to be re-transmitted, determine how to re-transmit the buffered group, wherein the rule set comprises: (A) a first rule stipulating that received fragments corresponding to a single packet are re-transmitted in the received sequence in which the received fragments were received independent of whether at least one additional fragment is received before the offset-0 fragment, such that, when the first rule is applied to the buffered group, the offset-0 fragment is not the first fragment of the buffered group to be re-transmitted; and (B) a second rule stipulating that received fragments corresponding to a single packet are re-transmitted in sequence by the offset order of the set of fragments, such that, when the second rule is applied to the buffered group, the offset-0 fragment is the first fragment of the buffered group to be re-transmitted.