Patent ID: 6853995

Claim:
An information retrieval/distribution system, comprising: an information retrieval request unit requesting the retrieval of several kinds of information that are scattered on a network; and a plurality of database management units managing databases in which said several kinds of information are stored, wherein each of said plurality of database management units has management information about the databases that are managed by each database management unit, and has management information about the databases that are managed by other database management units that can be connected to said each database management unit through said network, and wherein when a retrieval criterion is input to said information retrieval request unit, one of said plurality of database management units, based on said management information in one database management unit, retrieves the information in the databases managed by said one database management unit, and requests any other database management unit managing the database in which the information related to said retrieval criterion is stored, to retrieve the information in the databases managed by said other database management unit, thereby distributing the information corresponding to said retrieval criterion to an information retrieval request source, wherein said one database management unit manages a plurality of databases and registers kinds of said plurality of databases as management information and, when the information retrieval is requested by said information retrieval request source, said one database management unit retrieves said plurality of databases to collect the reguired information, and then converts the data format of the collected information into a unified format and distributes the collected information to said information retrieval request source.