Patent Document ID: 20050066052
Application ID: 10665033
Patent Flag: 0

Claim One:
1. A method for dynamically determining costs for links of a network wherein the network has a corresponding set of defined routing factors based on characteristics of the network links and wherein each routing factor has one or more allowable values, said method comprising the steps of: selecting one or more routing factors from the set of routing factors; for each selected routing factor, selecting one or more of the allowable values; prioritizing the selected routing factors; for each selected routing factor, prioritizing the selected allowable values; and for any given link in the network: determining for each selected routing factor which selected allowable value, if any, matches the characteristics of the link; combining the prioritization of each matched value with the prioritization of that value's corresponding routing factor to determine a cost for each factor; and summing the combined costs for each selected routing factor to determine the cost for the link.