Patent Document ID: 9143434
Application ID: 13523564
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A network component comprising: a receiver configured to receive a packet; at least one processor coupled to the receiver and configured to: maintain a topology to label mapping table comprising a plurality of topology labels each identifying an associated one of a plurality of network topologies; determine through classification of the packet a first of the network topologies corresponding to the packet; determine through classification of the packet a forwarding equivalence class (FEC) corresponding to the packet and corresponding to the first network topology; attach to the packet a first of the topology labels from the topology to label mapping table that identifies the first network topology corresponding to the packet, wherein the first of the topology labels is attached to the packet to support selection, at a next hop node, of an incoming label mapping table associated with the first network topology for further packet forwarding in the first network topology based solely on label information; and attach to the packet a next hop label identifying the next hop node for the FEC in the first network topology, wherein the next hop label is obtained from a FEC-to-next-hop-label-forwarding-entry (FEC-to-NHLFE) table; and a transmitter coupled to the processor and configured to forward the packet to the next hop node for the FEC in the first network topology.