Patent ID: 7610274

Claim:
A method for retrieving data from a database, comprising: displaying data including a plurality of attributes; selecting a plurality of segments from the displayed data; determining an attribute of each of the plurality of segments, wherein an attribute of a first one of the plurality of segments is a text attribute, and an attribute of a second one of the plurality of segments is a non-text attribute; setting a first search key and a second search key, wherein text data corresponding to the text attribute of the first one of the plurality of segments is set as the first search key, and non-text data corresponding to the non-text attribute of the second one of the plurality of segments is extracted and set as the second search key; setting a search expression using the plurality of segments, and a logic operator, wherein the logic operator corresponding to a predetermined path drawn by a pointing operation is set in the setting step; and searching the database, based on the first search key and the second search key, by using a search method corresponding to the first search key and the second search key, respectively, wherein the non-text attribute comprises at least one of an image, a photograph, a table, graphics, figures, a picture, a frame, or a line.