Document information search apparatus and method and recording medium storing document information search program therein

• US 6,883,001 B2
• Filed: 01/16/2001
• Issued: 04/19/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 05/26/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Original Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Inventors: Abe, Seiichiro
• Primary Examiner(s): Alam, Shahid Al
• Application Number:
  US09/761,222
• Publication Number:
  US 20010047351A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,554 Days
• Field of Search: 707/3, 707/10, 707/100, 707/104.1, 707/4, 707/6, 704/9, 704/7, 704/239, 704/246, 704/251, 709/216, 709/218
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/30 of unstructured textual data document management systems G06F16/93
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/313 Selection or weighting of terms for indexing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/38 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access

Abstract

An apparatus for searching document information in response to a search request from a client is disclosed. When a document file is designated as a search condition by a search condition designating unit of the client, the unit causes contents of the designated file to be transmitted via a network. A document search unit of a search machine forms a keyword based on the file contents transmitted from the search condition designating unit, and searches similar documents from an index or selection of important words extracted from search target documents provided in a search database.

Claims

1. A document information search apparatus for searching document information on the basis of a search request transmitted through a computer network and responding, wherein:

a search condition designating unit, which designates a file as a search condition and transmits contents of said designated file via the network, is provided for a search requesting source; and

a document search unit having a morpheme analyzing unit which extracts nouns by a morpheme analysis of a text document and which forms a keyword from the file contents transmitted from said search condition designating unit and searches similar documents from a database is provided on a search side,

wherein said document search unit comprises a search executing unit which searches for similar documents by searching the database by using said keyword and notifies the search requesting source of a search result.

2. An apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said search condition designating unit transmits a head file portion of the designated file contents.

3. An apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said search condition designating unit allows an HTML file and an Excel file to be included in the file which is designated as said search condition.

4. An apparatus according to claim 1, wherein index information describing a list of important words extracted from search target documents is stored for every document in said database, and said document search unit on the search side comprises:

a text extraction processing unit which extracts a text document from the file contents, received in response to the search request;

a keyword forming unit which extracts important words from said nouns and forms a keyword in which said important words are coupled by OR; and

a search executing unit which searches for similar documents by searching the database by using said keyword and notifies the search requesting source of a search result.

5. An apparatus according to claim 4, wherein said keyword forming unit counts the number of times of appearance showing in which documents in the index of each of the search documents stored in said document database each of said nouns appears, selects a predetermined number of upper words each having the number of times of appearance in a predetermined range, and forms the keyword.

6. An apparatus according to claim 5, wherein in the case where the number of documents in the index is assumed to be (N), said keyword forming unit selects upper ten words each having the number (H) of times of appearance in a range where 2N/3≧

H≧

1 and forms the keyword.

7. An apparatus according to claim 5, wherein said keyword forming unit allows property information extracted from the file received in response to the search request to be included in said keyword, thereby allowing the similar documents to be searched.

8. An apparatus according to claim 7, wherein said property information includes a writer of the file received in response to the search request and a document title.

9. An apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said search condition designating unit of said search requesting source is provided by a WWW browser of a client, transmits the contents of the file designated by a search request picture plane of said WWW browser to a search machine of a WWW server through the network, and sends said file contents to said document search unit.

10. A document information search apparatus for searching document information on the basis of a search request transmitted through a network and responding, wherein:

a search condition designating unit which designates a file as a search condition and transmits contents of said designated file via the network is provided for a search requesting source; and

a document search unit which forms a keyword from the file contents transmitted from said search condition designating unit and searches similar documents from a database is provided on a search side;

wherein index information describing a list of important words extracted from search target documents is stored for every document in said database;

and said document search unit on the search side comprises;

a text extraction processing unit which extracts a text document from the file contents received in response to the search request;

a morpheme analyzing unit which extracts nouns by a morpheme analysis of said text document;

a keyword forming unit which extracts important words from said nouns and forms a keyword in which said important words are coupled by OR; and

a search executing unit which searches for similar documents by searching the search database by using said keyword and notifies the search requesting source of a search result; and

wherein said keyword forming unit allows property information extracted from the file received in response to the search request to be included in said keyword, thereby allowing the similar documents to be searched.