Patent ID: 8509073

Claim:
A communication apparatus to process a data stream comprising an allocation block having a known length, the allocation block comprising a plurality of variable length packet data units (PDUs), the apparatus comprising: a memory device; and a processor configured to communicate with the memory device, the processor further configured to identify an encoded checksum based on at least a portion of a first packet, wherein the first packet comprises a header having a packet length field and the encoded checksum is based on at least a portion of the header, to calculate a second checksum based on the at least the portion of the header of the first packet, to determine an integrity of the first packet by determining the first packet to be erroneous if the second checksum does not match the encoded checksum, and in response to determining the integrity of the first packet to be erroneous: to identify a second packet at a location indicated by the packet length field of the first packet: to determine that the packet length field of the first packet is correct on a condition that the second packet is identified at the location indicated by the packet length field of the first packet; and to process the first packet as not erroneous on a condition that the packet length field of the first packet is determined to be correct.