Patent ID: 7697540

Claim:
A method for preventing the reordering of a plurality of packets within a flow after a Quality of Service (QoS) class had been altered in one packet which is associated with the plurality of packets, said method comprising the steps of: receiving said altered packet which has a token attached thereto that indicates an old QoS class and a new QoS class; checking the token associated with said altered packet; queuing said altered packet in the old QoS class; queuing said remaining packets of the plurality of packets in the old QoS class; allocating a proxy packet in the new QoS class; once the proxy packet is scheduled to be serviced, then servicing a head-of-line packet which is associated with the old QoS class as if the head-of-line packet was associated with the new QoS class; and once the altered packet which still has the token attached thereto is scheduled to be serviced, then servicing the altered packet which is associated with the old QoS class as if the altered packet was associated with the old QoS class.