US Patent 7630398 Subnet independent transparent bridge

A method and apparatus for intelligently bridging a first network and a second network are disclosed. In one embodiment, a protocol independent bridge device driver is bound to a first and a second network interface card device driver in order to access the first and the second network. Then the bridge device driver adaptively derives topology of the first and the second network based on network packets that it receives from the first and the second network. Lastly, the bridge device driver delivers the received network packets based on information contained in the received network packets and the derived topology.