Patent ID: 8166057

Claim:
A data providing apparatus for providing to-be-searched data including a search query, comprising: a storing part configured to store, in association with each other, shape characteristics of the to-be-searched data which have been non-reversibly encoded according to an encoding method, and search result information to be provided as a search result with respect to the to-be-searched data; a converting part configured to non-reversibly encode shape characteristics of the search query according to the same method as the encoding method; an obtaining part configured to obtain the search result information which is associated with non-reversibly encoded shape characteristics of the to-be-searched data, with the use of the non-reversibly encoded shape characteristics of the search query; and a providing part configured to provide the thus-obtained search result information, wherein the encoding method includes sequentially performing a rectangle extracting process, a line extracting process, a quantizing process and a symbol generating process, wherein the rectangle extracting process extracts a rectangle for each character included in the to-be-searched data and the search query, the line extracting process generates lines by connecting adjacent rectangles, and the quantizing process and the symbol generating process are carried out on each of the extracted rectangles of the respective characters.