Patent ID: 8688621

Claim:
A non-transitory computer-readable medium having computer-readable program code embodied therein for causing a computer system to perform a method for compressing information, the method comprising: finding a closest match entry in a dictionary to an incoming data block, the data block containing portions of data, each portion larger than one bit, said dictionary stored in computer usable media within said non-transitory computer-readable medium, wherein said dictionary comprises a plurality of entries for matching with said data block; performing a logical exclusive OR on each portion of said closest match entry and said data block to form a spatial difference vector identifying locations where said data block differs from said closest match entry, the spatial difference vector contains corresponding bit locations wherein each bit location contains a one bit value to indicate if said portion of data differs or not; forming an information difference vector only comprising differences between said data block and said closest match entry; and producing a compressed data block comprising said spatial different vector, said information difference vector and a reference to said closest match entry, wherein said compressed data block is characterized as being smaller than said data block; and wherein the dictionary comprises uncompressed data, compressed data and pointers to other dictionary entries, wherein an entry in the dictionary comprises verification bytes to identify a valid dictionary entry, wherein an independent dictionary maintenance process removes the oldest entries in the dictionary.