Abstract: In one embodiment of the present invention, a method for facilitating association of user accessible content and supplemental information that is at least one of audibly and visually outputted by a user terminal comprises a plurality of operations. An operation is performed for maintaining a data structure that associates supplemental information relating to such user accessible content with timeframe information corresponding to the supplemental information. Prior to a location within said user accessible content where content corresponding to the supplemental information is contained being outputted via the user terminal, an operation is performed for receiving a timeframe information query corresponding to said user accessible content from the user terminal.

Abstract: A method for facilitating interactive advertising in Digital Television (DTV) program content through highlighting of advertised offerings comprises a plurality of operations. An operation is performed for creating an entry in a buyable item list during presentation of DTV program content. The offering response data structure entry is created in response to selection of a buyable item that is visually highlighted within the DTV program content. An operation is performed for facilitating an order fulfillment process for the selected buyable item in response to the buyable item entry in the buyable item list being selected.

Abstract: The invention involves an interactive system and method for selection and display of advertisements, product information and other information in programming that can be updated at any time by advertisers and accessed at any time by television viewers without requiring any more functionality from the user terminal than is currently required for interactive services. The invention preferably utilizes insertion of a large number of interactivity points into video programs associated with certain times or frames of a program that can be compared to supplemental information locations in a program to obtain supplemental information links.

Abstract: A system and method of scheduling and servicing events in a communications network are described. To provide improved efficiency while maintaining fairness to all traffic a two slot dynamic length Weighted Fair Queuing (WFQ) calendar is implemented. The two slot calendar can transformed to provide fine granularity utilizing a hierarchical WFQ scheme.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for buffering data units in a communication switch that allows for configurable monitoring of the buffer contents is presented. Such an apparatus includes a context table that stores a plurality of independent group identifiers for each connection. Although the group identifiers may include a partition group identifier and a loss group identifier that is dependent on the partition group identifier, additional group identifiers are included in the context table for each connection that are independent of other group identifiers in the context table. Such a context table may be dynamically reconfigured in order to group connections for buffer monitoring operations related to congestion detection, traffic shaping, and data admission with respect to buffering. When a data unit is received corresponding to a particular connection, the context table is referenced to retrieve the set of group identifiers corresponding to that connection.

Abstract: One or more embodiments of the present invention provide a method and apparatus for multicasting of data, for example, cell data or frame data, with the ability to dynamically manage such multicasting. A data structure, referred to as a to-do list, is maintained with entries for enqueued data elements. To-do list entries include a data element pointer identifying the corresponding data element and a leaf to be processed pointer indicating the progression of transmission of the corresponding data element to the plurality of leaves of a multicast tree, wherein the plurality of leaves are used to transmit the data to a plurality of multicast destinations. A method for counting copies of each data element as they are transmitted to each of the plurality of leaves is performed so as to accommodate the addition or deletion of one or more multicast leaves during the multicasting process.

Abstract: A fast and scalable pattern making engine is presented. The engine represents variations on a Shift-And method capable of matching patterns in data streams having high speed data rates. In one aspect of the invention high speed is achieved by accessing the pattern RAM in parallel. In another aspect, the input is likened to TDM and individual slots or channels are accessed separately. The two aspects can also be combined to provide a scalable and high speed pattern matching engine. The engine is adaptable to streams of known length or more complex expressions such as regular expressions with arbitrary length.

Abstract: In accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention, a method and system for providing combined processing of cell traffic and packet traffic is described. For a communication device, the improved system provides a series of inputs on a single line card for processing both ATM traffic (e.g., native ATM or encapsulated packets) and packet traffic. The system receives the cell traffic and packet traffic, then converts them into a common form. The converted traffic traverses the fabric, then the system reconstitutes the converted traffic into its original form. The system provides output as ATM traffic or packet traffic, as originally received.

Abstract: One or more embodiments of the present invention provide a method and apparatus for efficiently accessing data segments having arbitrary alignment with the memory structure in which they are stored. For example, a memory structure may be organized so that memory accesses occur with respect to units of memory defined based on a relationship of a total memory bandwidth to a size of an amount of desired data to be accessed. In such an example, the units of memory are defined so as to maximize efficiency by minimizing the number of memory access operations performed to access the amount of desired data.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for frame-aware and pipelined hierarchical scheduling is described. In accordance with at least one embodiment of the invention, some or all schedulers of a communication node are associated with one or more storage devices that maintain values used by corresponding higher level schedulers to make scheduling decisions. Because of the nature of the scheduling decision flow and the potential to update registers in real-time, the scheduling arrangement can respond almost immediately to changes occurring at the input queues, which allows scheduling to be responsive to differing priorities of incoming cells. The nature of the scheduling decision flow also allows pipelined scheduling, in which scheduling of one or more additional cells can begin before scheduling of a first cell is completed.

Abstract: In accordance with at least one embodiment of the present invention, a method and apparatus for scheduling traffic in a communications node is provided. Line cards request communication opportunities from a switch fabric. The switch fabric issues grants for such communication opportunities in response to specific requests. By dynamically adjusting usage of such communication opportunities corresponding to such grants among requests of differing priorities and/or latency criteria, embodiments of the present invention are able to provide increased capacity utilization of switching fabric bandwidth while maximizing adherence to priority requirements and/or latency criteria.