Patent ID: 7840072

Claim:
A method of identifying whether a target pattern is present within a source pattern composed of one or more characters from an alphabet set, comprising: determining, using a processing apparatus, whether the position of the source pattern within a sequence of possible patterns is a position which correlates with a position within the sequence of possible patterns that includes the target pattern, wherein determining comprises: i. identifying the group leader for the source pattern where the group leader is the highest position number in each group formed by dividing a sequence of possible position numbers into groups according to the base of the alphabet set; and ii. determining whether the group leader value of the source pattern is a group leader value that correlates with the position of the target pattern within the sequence of possible patterns that includes the target pattern, wherein the group leader value of the source pattern is determined directly or indirectly for each row by dividing an ascending sequence of possible position numbers into groups having a group size corresponding to the base of the alphabet set raised to the power of the row less one, where the row corresponds to a position of the target pattern within the source pattern.