Patent ID: 7577151

Claim:
A method for searching for network connections for devices on a network, the method comprising: receiving a packet over a network at a computer system and retrieving connection information from the packet; zeroing particular fields in the connection information in response to the packet being a connection-starting packet that establishes a new connection, and not zeroing the particular fields in response to the packet being provided for an existing connection; converting the connection information to an address for a location in a direct table using a table access process, wherein the direct table stores a plurality of patterns and associated reference information, at least two of the stored patterns having different types, wherein each of the patterns of the first type indicates an associated new connection is available and each of the patterns of the second type is associated with using an associated existing connection; and comparing the connection information with at least one pattern stored in the direct table at the location pointed to by the address to find reference information for the received packet.