Patent ID: 7782854

Claim:
A network system including a plurality of terminal devices and a plurality of switching apparatuses to configure a network for packet communication among the plurality of terminal devices, wherein each one of the switching apparatuses includes a plurality of connection ports for connecting to one or more of the plurality of terminal devices or one or more of the plurality of switching apparatuses, wherein one of the plurality of terminal devices serves as a full-routing management server by performing: assigning a personal area network (PAN) member identifier (ID) to each of said plurality of terminal devices including the terminal device serving as the full-routing management server, each said PAN member ID being a unique identifier and being different from a MAC/IP address; assigning a full-routing-label to each network connection path from one of the plurality of terminal devices to another one of the plurality of terminal devices, each said full-routing-label being a unique label and being defined by one or more of the plurality of switching apparatuses on the network; generating a first-routing-label table for each said terminal device, wherein each said first-routing-label table includes the PAN member IDs of destination terminal devices, full-routing-labels indicating network connection paths to the destination terminal devices from the source terminal device, and names of all switching apparatuses on the network connection path indicated by each of the full-routing labels; generating a second-routing-label table for each of the switching apparatuses, wherein each said second-routing-label table includes information indicating a relationship between a connection of an input connection port and an output connection port and each of the full-routing-labels; distributing each said first-routing-label table to a corresponding terminal device on the network; and distributing each said second-routing-label table to a corresponding switching apparatus on the network, wherein each said terminal device performs: storing the first-routing-label table distributed from the full-routing management server; specifying one of the full-routing-labels indicating a network connection path to a destination of a packet, by using the stored first-routing-label table; and including the specified full-routing-label in a predetermined area of the packet and sending the packet to the network, and wherein each of said switching apparatuses performs: storing the second-routing-label table distributed from the full-routing management server; in response to a reception of a packet via one of the connection ports, specifying a connection port for outputting the packet by using the full-routing-label included in the received packet and in the stored second-routing-label table; and outputting the packet via the specified connection port, and wherein transmission of a packet from an originator terminal device to one of the destination terminal devices is made using the full-routing-label included in the packet.