US Patent 7787369 Flexible Ethernet bridge

Congestion is minimized on a desired port in an Ethernet bridge. A packet with a destination address and a source address is received on an incoming port. An address table is search to determine a destination port associated with the destination address. If the destination port is not determined by the search then flooding the packet on all of the ports except the desired port if the incoming port is determined to be equal to the desired port; and flooding the packet on all of the ports except the incoming port and the desired port if the incoming port is determined to be not equal to the desired port.