Patent ID: 7895197

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of locating documents in a database of electronic documents, the method comprising: dividing each document of a plurality of the documents into fragments; associating each fragment with the document from which the fragment originated; associating metadata with the fragments, wherein the metadata associated with a fragment includes metadata related to one or more topics of the fragment; receiving a query for documents containing information about a topic, wherein the query includes at least one term specifying the topic; comparing the at least one query terms with the metadata associated with fragments of the documents; locating at least one document from the database based on the comparison of the one or more query terms with the metadata associated with the fragments associated with the located document; and monitoring the frequency with which individual fragments are identified as relevant to search queries; and updating the fragments into which documents of a plurality of the documents are divided based on the monitored frequency with which individual fragments are identified as relevant to search queries.