Information retrieval apparatus and recording medium having an information retrieval program recorded

• US 7,124,126 B1
• Filed: 07/12/2000
• Issued: 10/17/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 07/13/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: NEC Corporation
• Original Assignee: NEC Corporation
• Inventors: Sugawa, Hajime, Matsuda, Katsushi
• Primary Examiner(s): Coby, Frantz
• Assistant Examiner(s): Nguyen, Cindy
• Application Number:
  US09/614,721
• Time in Patent Office: 2,288 Days
• Field of Search: 707/3, 707/104.1, 707/4
• US Class Current: 707/766
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/382 using citations hypermedia G06F16/94
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/972 Access to data in other repository systems, e.g. legacy data or dynamic Web page generation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99934 Query formulation, input preparation, or translation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

The invention analyzes a character string and link information of a WWW page being currently browsed, infers that the said page is a page having a collection of information of a certain kind, namely, an objective field such as present information, event information or the like, and embeds into this page a function of performing a retrieval limited to the inferred objective field. A user performs a limited retrieval using the retrieval function and obtains other information of the said objective field.

Claims

1. An information retrieval apparatus comprising:

a data monitoring and content judging means for monitoring a document retrieved from a database and inferring a field to which this document belongs, and

a retrieval screen generating means for generating a retrieval screen for a user to perform a retrieval operation taking the inferred field as an object of retrieval and outputting the retrieval screen as data to be displayed together with said retrieved document, wherein

a document retrieved from said database is a structured document, and

said retrieval screen is a screen of a structured document in which screen a retrieval part is embedded in the retrieved structured document and a user can retrieve.

3. An information retrieval apparatus according to claim 1, wherein;

output of said retrieval screen generating means is supplied to an input/output means for retrieving and displaying a document stored in said database, and

said input/output means displays a retrieval screen outputted by said retrieval screen generating means and retrieves again another document stored in said database by a retrieval operation performed by a user according to this retrieval screen.

2. An information retrieval apparatus comprising:

a data monitoring and content judging means for monitoring a document retrieved from a database in inferring a field to which this document belongs, and

a retrieval screen generating means for generating a retrieval screen for a user to perform a retrieval operation taking the inferred field as an object of retrieval and outputting the retrieval screen as data to be displayed together with said retrieved document, wherein

a document retrieved from said database is a structured document, and

said retrieval screen is a screen of a structured document in which a retrieval part is separate from the retrieved structured document and a user can retrieve.

7. An information retrieval apparatus according to claim 2, wherein

output of said retrieval screen generating means is supplied to an input/output means for retrieving and displaying a document stored in said database, and

said input/output means displays a retrieval screen outputted by said retrieval screen generating means and retrieves again another document stored in said database by a retrieval operation performed by a user according to this retrieval screen.

4. An information retrieval apparatus comprising:

a data monitoring and content judging means for monitoring a document retrieved from a database and inferring a field to which this document belongs, and

a retrieval screen generating means for generating a retrieval screen for a user to perform a retrieval operation taking the inferred field as an object of retrieval and outputting the retrieval screen as data to be displayed together with said retrieved document, wherein

a document retrieved from said database is a structured document, and

said data monitoring and content judging means infers a field which the structured document belongs to, using as a criterion of judgement either one or both of the content of text data contained in the structured document and the number of links.

5. An information retrieval apparatus comprising:

a data monitoring and content judging means for monitoring a document retrieved from a database and inferring a field to which this document belongs, and

a retrieval screen generating means for generating a retrieval screen for a user to perform a retrieval operation taking the inferred field as an object of retrieval and outputting the retrieval screen as data to be displayed together with said retrieved document, wherein

a document retrieved from said database is given in advance the information for identifying its field, and

said data monitoring and content judging means notifies said retrieval screen generating means of a field represented by said identifying information.

6. A recording medium having an information retrieval program stored in a recording medium, said program making a computer realize a data monitoring and content judging function for monitoring the content of a document retrieved by an input/output device capable of retrieving a document stored in a database and for inferring a field which to said document belongs, and a retrieval screen generating function for generating a retrieval function taking the inferred field as an object of retrieval and providing the retrieval function generated to said input/output device.