US Patent 10122735 Switch having dynamic bypass per flow

In a method for processing packets in one or more network devices, a first packet is received at the one or more network devices, the first packet being associated with a first bypass indicator. Based at least in part on the first bypass indicator, the first packet, a portion of the first packet, or a packet descriptor associated with the first packet is caused to bypass at least a portion of a first packet processing unit among a plurality of processing units of the one or more network devices, each processing unit being configured to perform a packet processing operation, and not to bypass at least a portion of a second packet processing unit among the plurality of processing units of the one or more network devices.