Patent ID: 7200587

Claim:
A similar document search method, implemented in a document search and retrieval system including a memory for storing a document database having documents and information concerning the documents and a processor for processing data of the document database, of searching to find and retrieve a document similar to a seeds document from said document database, the method, comprising the steps executed by the processor, of: first extracting at least one characteristic word from the seeds document including desired retrieval contents; if the at least one characteristic word extracted by the first extracting step is one of a compound characteristic phrase constructed by a plurality of constituent characteristic words included in the compound characteristic phrase, second extracting of characteristic words included in said compound characteristic phrase and each of said plurality of constituent characteristic words of said compound characteristic phrase; calculating, according to the characteristic words extracted by the second extracting step, a degree of similarity between the seeds document and each of the documents stored on the document database, by generating characteristic vectors using the characteristic words including the compound characteristic phrase and the constituent characteristic words by which the compound characteristic phrase is constructed, the characteristic vectors being extracted from the seeds document and each of the documents stored on the document database; and outputting a retrieval result, including an indication of the degree of similarity between each of the documents stored on the database and the seeds document, as a result of the degree of similarity between the seeds document and each of the documents stored on the document database as calculated by the similarity calculating step, thereby permitting documents having a high degree of similarity to the seeds document to be retrieved, wherein the similarity calculating step includes the steps of: calculating a weighting coefficient corresponding to a distance between said constituent characteristic words on the document stored on the document database, said distance being calculated based on term appearance positions of said constituent characteristic words in a phrase including said characteristic words extracted in said second extracting step on the document stored on the document database; and calculating similarity using cosines of angles between the characteristic vectors extracted from the seeds document and the characteristic vectors extracted from each of the documents stored on the document database involving the weighting coefficient.