Patent ID: 7930348

Claim:
A chat system comprising a plurality of terminal devices; and a chat server for supporting information exchange in a chat performed between said terminal devices via a network, comprising: a certain terminal device displaying a first chat area for conducting the chat in a display unit, and sending to said chat server a position of an element adjacent to a display position of said chat area and information for identifying a target terminal device, wherein the position of the element is designated using a technique selected from a group consisting of XPointer and XPath; wherein the chat server comprises a chat window managing section for managing chat windows of the terminal devices, wherein the chat window managing section includes a chat window managing table, wherein the chat server further comprises a session managing section for managing sessions, wherein the session managing section includes a session managing table, wherein the chat server further comprises an Access Control List managing section for executing an access control in a chat, a message sending/receiving section for controlling a network interface to exchange messages relative to the terminal devices, a chat content keeping section for storing the chat contents in a storage device, and an asynchronous mode managing section for managing an operation according to an asynchronous mode; said chat server establishes a chat session relative to said target terminal device based on the information for identifying the target terminal device received from said certain terminal device, and sends the position of the element adjacent to the display position of said chat area to said target terminal device, wherein the established chat session is independent of other chat sessions and is synchronized among the terminal devices; said chat server manages the asynchronous mode until the chat session is established between the terminal devices; and said target terminal device displays a second chat area for conducting the chat session with said certain terminal device, at a display position on a display screen of a display unit adjacent to the position of the element identified and sent by the certain terminal devices when a chat session is established.