Patent ID: 7379480

Claim:
A method of synchronizing clocks in separate nodes on a communication network, the clocks providing count outputs to the nodes, the method comprising the steps of: a) determining a count rate of a master clock in a master node and a count rate of a slave clock in a slave node; b) determining the difference between the clocks of the master clock and the slave clock at a corresponding time; c) determining a network delay between the master node and the slave node by sending first time stamped messages from a first node of the master node and slave node to a second node of the master node and slave node and sending a second time stamped message from the second node to the first node also including a first delay between the time stamp of the first time stamped message and its receipt time, the network delay being an average of the first delay and a second delay between the time stamp of the second time stamped message and its receipt time; d) adjusting a speed of the slave clock based on the count rates and the difference and the network delay to cause the count rates and the counts of the master clock and slave clock to converge without large corrective jumps so that no count output of the slave clock is skipped.