Patent 9426099 was granted and assigned to Panasonic on August, 2016 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
An router includes: a plurality of data storage sections configured to store input data; and an arbiter configured to compare the availability of at least one of the plurality of data storage sections with respect to data that is stored in that data storage section and that shares at least a part of a transmission path to the availability of another data storage section in an adjacent router with respect to that data that also shares at least that part of the transmission path, thereby determining, based on a result of the comparison, whether or not to output that data.