Patent ID: 8543669

Claim:
A network switch comprising: a collision detector for broadcasting a first Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) request message, received by a port of the network switch, to a broadcast domain, and if a first ARP reply message, transmitted to a source Media Access Control (MAC) address of the first ARP request message, is received, for storing the source MAC address in a collision list; and a collision manager, which stores collision MAC addresses, for comparing a destination MAC address of a packet with a MAC address of the network switch if the packet is not the first ARP request message and the source MAC address is included in the collision list, for transmitting the first ARP reply message, including the MAC address of the network switch, to an originating node of the packet if the destination MAC address of the packet is not equal with the MAC address of the network switch, and for dropping the packet if the destination MAC address of the packet is equal with the MAC address of the network switch.