Patent ID: 7764694

Claim:
A method for prioritizing network traffic comprising: receiving a packet from a sender device, the packet addressed to a receiver device; performing a deep packet inspection of the packet at a network layer to collect data that identifies at least one of an application or protocol associated with the packet; generating a signature from the data that identifies the at least one of an application or protocol; comparing the signature to entries in a signature library; identifying that the data packet is associated with a particular application or protocol if a match of the signature to an entry in the signature is found; updating the signature library with the signature if a match of the signature to an entry in the signature library is not found; generating traffic priority information associated with the packet based upon the identifying, the traffic priority information indicating traffic prioritization between the sender device and the receiver device; forwarding the packet to the receiver device; receiving an acknowledgment packet from the receiving device; and inserting the traffic priority information into the acknowledgment packet at a transport layer.