Patent ID: 7430617

Claim:
A packet transmission method, comprising: (a) establishing with a receiving device a compression context for a plurality of packets, the plurality of packets associated with at least a reliable multicast protocol, wherein each of the plurality of packets includes a header having a plurality of header fields; (b) generating a compressed packet for one of the plurality of packets, the compressed packet having a reduced number of bits in its header; said compressed packet formed by compression in one of a plurality of states ranging from an initialization and refresh state for sending packets having substantially complete header information, to more compressed states for sending one or more packets with headers having progressively more compressed header information, said compression adaptively reverting from said more compressed states to said initialization and refresh state to accommodate unidirectional receivers of the multicast packets, wherein the reverting in compression states is triggered at an expiration of a timer or a sequence counter of the multicast packets; and (c) transmitting the compressed packet to the receiving device.