US Patent 7512339 Optical packet processing apparatus

In an optical packet processing apparatus, an optical coupler joins optical packets transmitted through a plurality of input side optical transmission lines and outputs the joined optical packets to an output side optical transmission line. The optical packet processing apparatus has delay sections for delaying desired optical packets for each input side optical transmission lines. Delay times of the delay sections are different by one optical packet time period, while a minimum delay time thereof is the optical packet time period or more.