The law retrieval system at the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) was developed and put into operation in 1972 and now answering monthly over 70 requests at maximum. The basic function of the system is to retrieve, from a file of full texts of MITI related laws and statutes, relevant items by matching specified words or phrases, character by character, with the provisions of the law under a given condition (equal or non-equal). For querying and answering, as well as for file maintenance, a kanji-processing system is employed, which was so developed as to minimize not only initial development, but also future improvements of the system in operation and to save excessive costs.
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