Patent ID: 7079504

Claim:
In a multicast router, a method of establishing a data path between a Foreign Agent and a Home Agent, the data path being adapted for transmission of multicast IP data packets from the Home Agent to the Foreign Agent to enable the multicast IP data packets to be transmitted to one or more mobile nodes visiting the Foreign Agent, comprising: receiving a host membership report from a mobile node, the host membership report specifying a multicast group address identifying a host group to which the mobile node belongs; sending a join host group message to the Home Agent, the join host group message specifying the multicast group address and requesting that the Home Agent accept and deliver subsequently arriving packets destined to the multicast group address to the Foreign Agent; receiving a packet addressed to the multicast group address; replicating the packet addressed to the multicast group address; and transmitting the replicated packet to one or more network segments associated with the Foreign Agent.