Patent ID: 8418045

Claim:
A network intermediate device comprising: a data transmitting/receiving part configured to receive a frame, the frame comprising a header including header error check information and header error check flag information that indicates whether or not a check and forward method is to be applied; and a control part configured to determine from the header error check flag information whether the check and forward method is to be applied, and if the check and forward method is to be applied, to control the data transmitting/receiving part to begin a transmission of the frame to a destination before an entirety of the frame is received by the data transmitting/receiving part if it is determined by using the header error check information that there are no errors in a header; and if the check and forward method is not to be applied, to determine whether there are errors in the entirety of the frame when the entirety of the frame is stored in the memory, and begin transmission of the frame if it is determined that there are no errors in the frame, wherein the header error check information comprises a checksum, parity bits or both.