Patent US 5,757,983

A document retrieval method and system for retrieving, from a document database storing document data in the form of character codes, a document which contains given search terms and which meets a given search query condition. From documents loaded from the document database, a document containing terms which match the search terms is searched to generate document identification (ID) information including a document identifier of the searched document and containing match terms found to match with the search terms as well as term identifiers of the match terms and position information of the match terms in the searched document. A decision is then made as to whether or not the position information of the match terms satisfies a positional condition specified in the search query condition concerning a positional relation between the search terms, and match information is then generated indicating satisfaction of the search query condition when the positional condition is satisfied. Through a proximity condition decision, it is ascertained whether the match terms satisfy an inter-term distance condition specified in the search query condition. Through a contextual condition decision, it is determined whether the match terms satisfy a concurrence condition specifying concurrence of the search terms in a same sub-sentence, a same sentence or a same paragraph. Through a logical condition, it is decided whether the match terms satisfy a logical condition between the search terms specified in the search query condition.