Patent ID: 8503445

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, at a network processing device, a message sent from at least one recipient device subscribed to a multicast group having multiple content suppliers, where the message is configured to explicitly request the network processing device to filter multicast traffic addressed to the multicast group and received subsequently to the message according to the content supplier of the multicast traffic; receiving, with the network processing device, multicast traffic addressed to the multicast group from one of the content suppliers associated with the multicast group, the received multicast traffic comprising a Layer 2 Virtual LAN (VLAN) group destination indication and a source indication; determining, with the network processing device, whether to forward the multicast traffic to the at least one recipient device subscribed to the multicast group based, at least in part, on the message, wherein determining whether to forward the multicast traffic comprises comparing the Layer 2 Virtual LAN (VLAN) group destination indication and the source indication to values stored in a registration table associated with at least one receiving port; and blocking the multicast traffic from at least one output port associated with the recipient device when the message indicates the recipient device does not wish to receive multicast traffic from the content supplier of the multicast packet, wherein the message indicates the recipient device does not wish to receive multicast traffic from the content supplier of the multicast packet when the Layer 2 Virtual LAN (VLAN) group destination indication and the source indication do not match the values stored in the registration table.