Patent ID: 7283527

Claim:
A method of maintaining a two-byte identification field of an Internet protocol (IP) header of a packet of data, the packet of data being transmitted over a network, the method comprising the steps of: determining whether the packet of data is permitted to be fragmented before being transmitted over the network wherein an identification number can be used more than once within a particular time span; using a unique identification number in the IP header of the packet of data if the packet of data is permitted to be fragmented, the unique identification number being a number that will not be used in the IP header of any other packet of data within the particular time span; and using a non-unique identification number in the IP header of the packet of data if the packet of data is not permitted to be fragmented, the non-unique identification number being a number that is used in the IP header of all packets of data that are not permitted to be fragmented to facilitate using unique identification numbers in the network.