Patent ID: 7310628

Claim:
An apparatus for retrieving and delivering a content, wherein the apparatus searches a database where contents and additional information describing the contents are stored based upon information form a terminal and delivers a retrieval result list as a result of the search to said terminal, the retrieval result list identifying a list of candidates of content items for delivery to said terminal as a result of the search, wherein the retrieval result list resulting from said search is formatted to be compatible with determined processing capabilities of said terminal, wherein the apparatus delivers a content item chosen from among the candidates in the retrieval result list, and wherein the chosen content item is also formatted to be compatible with the determined processing capabilities of said terminal, the apparatus comprising: a content retrieving section that searches said database to acquire each of the contents satisfying a search condition based upon the information from said terminal, extracts the additional information describing each of the contents acquired as a result of the search, and outputs a retrieval result list in which the extracted additional information is published; a retrieval result list formatting section that, based on information received from said terminal, formats the retrieval result list obtained from said content retrieving section into any format that can be processed on a particular terminal depending upon the processing capabilities of said terminal; and a retrieval result list delivering section that delivers the retrieval result list formatted by said retrieval result list editing section to said terminal before delivering a content item to said terminal as a result of the search, wherein at least one of the content retrieving section, the retrieval list formatting section, and the retrieval list delivering section is executed by a processor in the apparatus.