VMware, Palo Alto, Calif., has been Assigned a patent (8,250,586) developed by Michael Nelson, Alamo, Calif., for a "high-performance virtual machine networking."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A virtual machine (VM) runs on system hardware, which includes a physical network interface device that enables transfer of packets between the VM and a destination over a network. A virtual machine monitor (VMM) exports a hardware interface to the VM and runs on a kernel, which forms a system software layer between the VMM and the system hardware. Pending packets (both transmit and receive) issued by the VM are stored in a memory region that is shared by, that is, addressable by, the VM, the VMM, and the kernel. Rather than always transferring each packet as it is issued, packets are clustered in the shared memory region until a trigger event occurs, whereupon the cluster of packets is passed as a group to the physical network interface device."

The patent application was filed on Feb. 26, 2009 (12/393,231). The full-text of the patent can be found at here.