Patent ID: 7161632

Claim:
A video conferencing system comprising: a communication line; and a plurality of video terminals interconnected in a point-to-point manner via said communication line, each of said video terminals being operable to display a subscreen within a main screen, and each of said video terminals including: an optimizing section operable to optimize a screen layout of the main screen and the subscreen based on a type of image to be displayed on the main screen and the subscreen, and operable to optimize a screen layout of the main screen and the subscreen of at least one other of said video terminals so as to result in a display mode specification command; a transmission section operable to transmit the display mode specification command to said at least one other of said video terminals via said communication line, wherein a screen layout is specified by the display mode specification command; a receiving section operable to receive a display mode specification command transmitted from at least one other of said video terminals via said communication line; and a switching section operable to switch a screen layout in accordance with the display mode specification command received by said receiving section.