Patent ID: 7639608

Claim:
A method performed in a network device, the method comprising: determining, in the network device, a present need to pause traffic flow to the network device, and if a present need to pause traffic flow to the network device is determined, placing in a type/length field in a frame, a value signifying the frame indicates that traffic flow to the network device should be paused, the traffic flow comprising one or more digital data packets, each of the one or more digital data packets including a priority level, the priority level indicating a relative level of importance of timely delivery of the digital data packet to the network device; placing in an opcode field in the frame, a value signifying that traffic flow to the network device should be paused or not paused according to its priority level; creating a priority mask field in the frame; and placing in the priority mask field, a value signifying which priority levels should be paused.