Patent ID: 7734811

Claim:
A method of processing a packet in a router comprising: creating a plurality of multi-feature packet processing rules, wherein said creating comprises, for each multi-feature packet processing rule of said multi-feature packet processing rules, forming said each multi-feature packet processing rule by merging a plurality of features according to a feature hierarchy, each of said features is defined in said feature hierarchy, at least one of said features in said feature hierarchy comprise another of said features in said feature hierarchy, said at least one of said features in said feature hierarchy is a complex feature, said another of said features in said feature hierarchy is a simple feature, and said at least one of said features in said feature hierarchy subsumes said another of said features in said feature hierarchy; populating said plurality of multi-feature packet processing rules in a multi-feature classification memory; populating an associated content-addressable memory with a plurality of indices, wherein said indices are indices of said plurality of multi-feature packet processing rules in said multi-feature classification memory, said associated content-addressable memory and said multi-feature classification memory are associated with one another by virtue of said associated content-addressable memory being coupled to provide an index of said indices to said multi-feature classification memory, and each of said indices corresponds to at least one of said multi-feature packet processing rules; using said index to retrieve a multi-feature packet processing rule from said multi-feature classification memory; and processing said packet according to said multi-feature packet processing rule.