System and method for determining a customer associated with a range of IP addresses by employing a configurable rule engine with IP address range matching
US6813645B1 · kind B1 · utility
Assignee
Inventor
Key dates
| Filing date | May 24, 2000 |
| Grant date | Nov 2, 2004 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | May 24, 2020 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04L61/4552
- WIPO fieldDigital communication
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A system and method for determining a customer associated with a range of IP addresses. The method includes the step of constructing an IP address matching tree using a defined range of IP addresses allocated to each customer including the steps of partitioning a minimum IP address and a maximum IP address which define the range of IP addresses into their four constituent bytes and sparsely populating a hierarchy of fixed sized arrays to allow look-up of each IP address associated with a customer. A set of network data is received including a match IP address. The customer associated with the match IP address is determined using the IP address matching tree by performing a sequence of array look-ups for each constituent byte in the match IP address. The method requires a maximum of only 4 look-ups to determine the customer associated with the match IP address.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.