Patent ID: 8804718

Claim:
A method comprising: in a first node of a multipoint-to-multipoint (MP2MP) label switched path (LSP) tree, the MP2MP LSP tree including a plurality of nodes, upon receiving a withdraw message from a third node, determining whether the first node has only a single replication branch for the MP2MP LSP tree, the single replication branch representing a downstream path to only a second node of the plurality of nodes; in response to determining that the first node has only the single replication branch for the MP2MP LSP tree, sending a message to the second node indicating that the second node should refrain from sending upstream traffic of the MP2MP LSP tree towards the first node, thereby preventing forwarding of upstream traffic for the MP2MP LSP tree to the first node; and in response to determining that the first node has more than one replication branch for the MP2MP LSP tree, refraining from sending the message to the second node indicating that the second node should refrain from sending upstream traffic of the MP2MP LSP tree towards the first node.