Patent Document ID: 3947825
Application ID: 05575318

Base Claim:
1. Apparatus for generating at least one abstract that is useful during information searching and retrieval procedures, comprising: 1. means for sensing information comprising individual words in a selected language, each word comprising one or more individual characters; 2. means for categorizing selected ones only of the characters in said words into predefined character groups that are based on a probability distribution of characters in the language selected; 3. means maintaining a count of the number of characters categorized into each of said predefined character groups; and 4. means for storing said count as an abstract of said information.

---

Claim 3:
3. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said count maintaining means has a limited count capacity of sufficient size for counting an average number of characters in each character group, and further comprising: 5. recognizing means for recognizing when the character count for any predefined character group exceeds said limited count capacity; and 6. force search means controlled by said recognizing means for generating and recording a force search indication rather than an abstract in order to signify that a search of the related information is required.