[coopdog]

I like the idea of a binary tree

Would it need to be balanced? It might be better to have to play 100 questions instead of 20 rather than pay O(n) in legal fees multiple times

[ajb]

Well, one purpose is that currently it's impossible for a small business to find what patents you might be infringing in the millions that exist. The tree doesn't need to be completely balanced, but if it degenerates to a linked list, the search problem is no better than it is now.