Patent ID: 6912523

Claim:
An object data search apparatus comprising: a database for storing destination object data in association with a plurality of categorized attribute words categorized according to sentence elements of a natural language; an input unit for receiving an input of search criteria in the form of a sentence of the natural language; a criteria retrieval unit for analyzing the search criteria in the form of the sentence and retrieving one or a plurality of categorized search words respectively categorized corresponding to sentence element categories of the natural language; a destination object retrieval unit for categorically searching sentence categories of the database using each of the categorized search words respectively associated with the sentence element categories, and retrieving the destination object data associated with the categorized attribute words that match a single search word or a plurality of search words in the same category, wherein filtering for attribute relation based on the grammatical structure of the natural language is performed; and an output apparatus for outputting the destination object data thus retrieved.