Patent ID: 8873392

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: a transceiver; and a flow logic configured to control the transceiver to transmit a frame to a downstream device by determining whether the frame matches a key value, wherein the key value identifies a source of frames, and wherein the key value is part of a flow control rule that specifies an action to perform for frames received from the source that are to be transmitted to the downstream device, and in response to determining that the frame matches the key value, controlling transmission of the frame to the downstream device according to the action specified by the flow control rule, wherein the flow logic is configured to control transmission of the frame by modifying transmission of the frame that is present in the apparatus, wherein the source is an application on a remote device connected to a network, wherein the apparatus is not the originating source of the frame, wherein the flow control rule permits the downstream device to selectively control which frames the apparatus transmits to the downstream device, wherein the apparatus is one hop from the downstream device, and wherein the key value is a metric value from a header of the frame that identifies the source.