Patent ID: 6442540
Filing Date: 2002-08-27
Classification: G06F,Y10S

Abstract:
An information retrieval apparatus comprising:a display device configured to display a document; an input device configured to specify a desired word in the displayed document; a retrieval section configured to search a database on the basis of the specified word and to acquire a plurality of retrieval results; a sentence extracting section configured to extract a sentence including the specified word from the displayed document; a sentence analysis section configured to analyze the sentence extracted by the sentence extracting section; an evaluation section configured to evaluate each of the plurality of retrieval results obtained by the retrieval section based on the result of sentence analysis made by said sentence analysis section; and a selector configured to select one of the plurality of retrieval results on the basis of the result of evaluation made by said evaluation section, wherein said evaluation section comprises a first keyword generator configured to select a first keyword from the sentence extracted by said sentence extracting section based on the result of the sentence analysis made by said sentence analysis section, and a calculator configured to calculate the number of occurrences of the first keyword in each of the retrieval results acquired by the retrieval section, wherein each of the number of occurrences of the first keyword and the corresponding retrieval result are stored in a keyword number table, and wherein the selector sequentially displays the plurality of retrieval results stored in the keyword number table corresponding to a retrieval result with a largest number of occurrences of the first keyword to a retrieval result with a smallest number of occurrences of the first keyword, said sequentially displayed retrieval results being different from each other.