Patent ID: 8199664

Claim:
A communication terminal for use in a communication network formed by a plurality of communication terminals that communicate with each other, the plurality of communication terminals having respective identifiers (IDs), the communication terminal being one of the plurality of communication terminals, the communication terminal comprising: a communication unit for transmitting packets to other communication terminals in the communication network and receiving packets from the other communication terminals in the communication; a hopcount cache for storing IDs of other communication terminals in the communication network and associated hopcounts indicating numbers of hops from the communication terminal to the other communication terminals in the communication network; a packet analyzer for analyzing each received packet to obtain the IDs of the source terminal and the destination terminal of the packet and a hopcount ceiling, obtaining the hopcounts associated with the IDs of the source terminal and the destination terminal from the hopcount cache and determining their sum, routing the received packet toward its destination terminal if the sum is equal to or less than the hopcount ceiling, and abandoning the received packet if the sum exceeds the hopcount ceiling, wherein to transmit a packet to an arbitrary terminal in the communication network, the packet analyzer selects a hopcount ceiling equal to or greater than the hopcount associated with the ID of the arbitrary terminal in the hopcount cache; and a packet generator for generating the packet to be transmitted to the arbitrary terminal, adding the hopcount ceiling to the packet, and transmitting the packet through the communication unit.