Patent ID: 8478770

Claim:
A method for searching related terms using an electronic device, the method comprising: obtaining a plurality of query terms from a storage device of the electronic device; calculating a direct relationship “R i, j ” between every two of the query terms, and obtaining a direct related matrix “R” according to the direct relationships; calculating a related score “P i, j ” between every two of the query terms, and obtaining a related score matrix “P” according to the related scores; calculating an indirect relationship “R′ i, j ” between every two of the query terms according to the direct relationship “R i, j ” and the related score “P i, j ” between every two terms; determining indirect terms of each query term according to the indirect relationship between every two of the query terms, and storing the determined indirect terms in the storage device of the electronic device, a first term of the query term being determined as the indirect term of a second term of the query terms upon the condition that the indirect relationship between the first term and the second term is greater than or equal to a preset value; and obtaining search results from a data source by performing a search operation according to the determined indirect terms, and displaying the search results on a display device of the electronic device.