US Patent 7379459 Address management method of MAC bridge and MAC bridge

A port management table 2 which stores connectable terminal information indicating an upper limit value of the number of terminals connectable to each port A, B and C is provided in a MAC bridge 1. When address retrieving means 7 of an address learning section 3 receives packet information Hi at the ports A, B and C from terminals of a network, the address retrieving means 7 retrieves the port management table 2. When the upper limit number is satisfied, register number addition/subtraction 8 adds/subtracts the number na of registrations, and writes a transmission origin address of packet information received by address table updating means 9 in an address table 5.