Patent ID: 7289982

Claim:
An information processing apparatus for presenting related information about existing document information and about specific document information, the information processing apparatus comprising: a processor for processing the existing document information; a memory for storing the existing document information; extracting means for extracting a first characteristic word from the existing document information and a second characteristic word from the specific document information; attribute information extracting means for extracting attribute information from the existing document information and the specific document information; classifying means for classifying the existing document information into one or more groups based on the attribute information; weight calculating means for calculating, for each group, a first weight of the first characteristic word and a second weight of the second characteristic word following the extraction by the extracting means; weight modifying means for modifying, for each group, the calculated first weight based on the extracted attribute information and based on frequency of either transmissions to a destination or receptions from the destination, wherein the calculated first weight of the first characteristic word in a group associated with a first frequency of transmission is increased if the same or similar words appear in another group having a second frequency of transmission, the first frequency of transmission being lower than the second frequency of transmission; acquiring means for acquiring the related information corresponding to the existing document information based on the first characteristic word and based on the first weight modified by the weight modifying means; searching means for searching for the existing document information related to the specific document information, based on the second characteristic word; and display controlling means for controlling display of the related information corresponding to the existing document information searched for by the searching means.