Patent Document ID: 8037403
Application ID: 11622216

Base Claim:
1. An apparatus for retrieving a structured document comprising: a processor that is programmed to retrieve the structured document, wherein the processor causes: a first specifying unit to specify a plurality of object documents from a plurality of structured documents being accessible via a network, the object document being the structured document according to retrieval condition, a first extracting unit to extract a text included in the object document, a second extracting unit to extract a metadata appended to the object document, the metadata being first data indicating the text of the object document and second data indicating a link relation between the object document and related documents, each of the related documents being the structured document associated with the object document, a second specifying unit to specify whether a description supporting the object document is included in the text of the each related document, an analyzing unit to analyze whether author information of a related document is included in a metadata appended to the related document based on the metadata appended to the object document, and a first calculating unit to calculate higher importance for the object document related to the related document having the author information thereof included in the metadata compared with important of the object document related to the related document not having the author information thereof included in the metadata; and further to calculate higher importance for the object document corresponding to the related document including the description supporting the object document compared with importance of the object document corresponding to the related document not including a description supporting the object document.

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Claim 10:
10. The apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising: a storage unit that stores author information of an author of the structured documents when the number of the structured documents specified by the second specifying unit is equal to or larger than a defined number set in advance, wherein the second specifying unit specifies the number of structured documents, the number of related documents of which associated in the metadata is equal to or larger than a defined value set in advance, the structured documents being written by same author, and the first calculating unit calculates higher importance for the object document of the author indicated in the author information compared to importance of the object documents of authors other than the author indicated in the author information held by the storing unit.