Patent ID: 8230121

Claim:
A method for identifying a desired device handle in a host computer system, the desired device handle facilitating interaction with a desired peripheral device, the method comprising the steps of: a) providing a database containing encoded therein information associating one or more device handles with one or more peripheral devices; b) scanning, using a computer, a first portion of the database for one or more descriptor data entries associated with the desired peripheral device; c) determining, using a computer, one or more associated data entries of the database related to the one or more descriptor data entries based on pre-existing implicit or explicit relationships between data entries in the database; d) determining, using a computer, a second portion of the database based on the one or more associated data entries, the second portion of the database being a strict subset of the database; and e) scanning, using a computer, the second portion of the database for information indicative of the desired device handle; and f) identifying, using a computer, the desired device handle based on the information indicative thereof.