Patent Document ID: 20070053297
Application ID: 11494352
Patent Flag: 0

Claim One:
1. A device adapted to process network traffic in conjunction with an additional device, wherein the devices are connected via a data network, the device comprising: logic adapted to receive a network packet; logic adapted to determine if the device has sufficient processing capacity to process network traffic associated with the network packet; logic adapted to evaluate the network packet using at least one rule adapted to determine whether to accept or pass-through the network packet; logic adapted to forward the network packet to an additional device in response to a determination that the device does not have sufficient processing capacity to process the associated network traffic; logic adapted to forward the network packet to an additional device in response to the evaluation of the rule determining to pass-through the network packet; and logic adapted to accept the network packet in response to a determination that the device does have sufficient processing capacity to process the associated network traffic and in response to the evaluation of the rule determining to accept the network packet.