Patent ID: 8402491

Claim:
A TV program searching apparatus comprising: an image receiving unit that receives an image having additional information from an external device; an additional information reading unit that reads the additional information from the image received from the image receiving unit; a TV program searching unit that recommends TV programs to a user by searching for a TV program which is related to the additional information using the additional information read by the additional information reading unit; and an information comparing unit that compares the additional information read by the additional information reading unit with TV program information provided from a broadcasting station, wherein the TV program searching unit searches for the TV program related to the additional information based on the result of the comparison by the information comparing unit, wherein the TV program searching apparatus further comprises a region information extracting unit that extracts particular geographical region information using the additional information read by the additional information reading unit, wherein the information comparing unit compares the geographical region information extracted by the region information extracting unit with the TV program information provided from the broadcasting station, and wherein the TV program searching unit searches for the TV program related to the geographical region information based on the result of the comparison by the information comparing unit.