Patents by Inventor Mallikarjunan Mahalingham

Mallikarjunan Mahalingham has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Means for allowing two or more network interface controller cards to appear as one card to an operating system
    Patent number: 6314525
    Abstract: The present invention provides a method and an apparatus for allowing a plurality of network interface controllers (NICs) to appear as a single NIC to an operating system. This method and apparatus is realized externally to the NIC driver software, and thus does not require NIC drivers to be modified. The present invention also operates independently of operating system, NIC driver software, NIC drivers and NIC hardware. Consequently, the present invention is compatible with a wide range of operating systems and NICs. One embodiment of the present invention operates at the MAC level and lower, thus avoiding the complexity of providing software support for higher layer protocols. However, providing support at the MAC level and lower makes it difficult to perform inbound load sharing. This is because protocols such as IPX use addresses and packet headers to direct reply packets. Hence, return traffic is directed back to the originating NIC regardless of whether the originating NIC is heavy loaded or not.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 2, 1997
    Date of Patent: November 6, 2001
    Assignee: 3Com Corporation
    Inventors: Mallikarjunan Mahalingham, Walter A. Wallach