Patent ID: 8175102

Claim:
A neighbor discovery method for a multi-mode mobile node, the method comprising: determining a network type of a network with which the mobile node is in communication, in response to a detection of a neighbor solicitation message generated by an upper layer unit of the mobile node; retrieving, if the network type of the network with which the mobile node is in communication is determined to be a self-processing network, information about the self-processing network from a database; determining, if the network type of the network with which the mobile node is in communication is determined to be a self-processing network, whether a tentative address contained in the neighbor solicitation message is already in use by another node with reference to the information about the network with which the mobile node is in communication and without sending the neighbor solicitation message to the self-processing network; generating, when the tentative address is already in use, a neighbor advertisement message in response to the neighbor solicitation message; and discarding, when the tentative address is not already in use, the neighbor solicitation message.