Patent ID: 8069188

Claim:
A database system storing a data structure comprising: a plurality of data nodes, each data node storing data comprising a type and a value, none of the data nodes of the plurality of data nodes being linked directly to another data node of the plurality of data nodes; a plurality of context nodes, each context node being linked by a separate link to at least two data nodes of the plurality of data nodes, and storing no data, the context node indicating a relationship exists between the at least two data nodes to which the context node is linked; a data layer table configured to store the type and the value of the data of each of the plurality of data nodes and a data node identifier for each of the plurality of data nodes; a context layer table configured to store a record for each link between a context node of the plurality of context nodes and a data node of the plurality of data nodes, the record comprising the data node identifier of the data node and a context node identifier for the context node; a type table configured to store a plurality of valid types, the type stored by each of the plurality of data nodes being one of the plurality of valid types, the type table being further configured to store a bridge type indicator for each of the plurality of valid types, the bridge type indicator being configured to indicate whether the type is a bridge type; and a bridge function configured to ignore any data nodes of the plurality of data nodes storing a type that in the type table, is associated with a bridge type indicator that indicates the type is a bridge type.