Patent ID: 7808929

Claim:
A method for creating a rule management system for processing data packets, the method comprising: associating each of a plurality of nodes of a data structure with a respective one of a plurality of possible combinations of first and second data field values; including in the data structure a node corresponding to each combination of first and second data field values for which there exists at least one rule of a plurality of rules; and excluding from the data structure at least one node corresponding to at least one combination of first and second data field values for which there does not exist a rule of a plurality of rules; and associating one or more rules of the plurality of rules with each node of the data structure; wherein a node and an associated set of one or more rules for processing a received data packet may be identified by determining first and second indices into the data structure that correspond to first and second data field values of the received data packet storing in a first wild card list, a first subset of the plurality of rules that match a plurality of first and second data field values; storing in a second wild card list, a second subset of the plurality of rules that match a plurality of first data field values and particular second data field values; and storing in a third wild card list, a third subset of the plurality of rules that match a plurality of second data field values and particular first data field values.