Patent ID: 7698262

Claim:
An apparatus for searching multimedia data, comprising: a mapping information processor for managing mapping information between a Moving Picture Experts Group 7 (MPEG-7) query attribute and an MPEG-7 metadata property; a mapping information memory for storing the mapping information between the MPEG-7 query attribute and the MPEG-7 metadata property; a query attribute mapping processor for acquiring the MPEG-7 metadata property mapped with the MPEG-7 query attribute from the mapping information memory according to a user query based on the mapping information; and a query attribute mapping memory for storing the acquired MPEG-7 metadata property mapped with the MPEG-7 query attribute in accordance to the user query based and the mapping information, wherein the query attribute mapping processor creates and outputs an MPEG-7 metadata query based on the mapped MPEG-7 metadata property.