US Patent 9722857 Node marking for control plane operation

A system assigns, to selected network devices in an intelligent transport network, a policy domain marker that identifies a particular network operation policy. The network devices that receive the policy domain marker delineate a region of enforcement for the particular policy. After an appropriate waiting period to permit the selected network devices to advertise their policy domain marker, the system distributes, to all network devices in the intelligent transport network that support control plane signaling or control plane routing, an enforcement signal to enforce the particular network operation policy for the delineated region.