Patent ID: 7859483

Claim:
An electronic conference control device comprising: a common screen management unit that manages information regarding a common screen image which is commonly displayed on a plurality of display devices in an electronic conference system; a local screen management unit that manages information regarding a local screen image displayed on a connected display device; a cut screen generation processor that generates a cut screen image by extracting a portion of a screen image contained in a region designated by a user on a screen image displayed on the connected display device; a common cut screen management unit that manages information regarding a common cut screen image which is commonly displayed on the plurality of display devices; a local cut screen management unit that manages information regarding a local cut screen image which is displayed only on the connected display device; a display controller that controls display of managed screen images on the connected display device; a screen-dividing processor that, upon selection of one or more common cut screen images from a common screen image displayed on the display device and reception of an instruction to start a discussion at a site which includes the display device, instructs the local cut screen management unit to manage the selected common cut screen image as a local cut screen image, which is displayed only on the connected display device; a screen integration processor that, upon reception of an instruction to complete the discussion at the site, instructs the common cut screen management unit to manage a local cut screen image, which is newly generated during the discussion, as a common cut screen image, and transmits the newly generated local cut screen image to be shared and a sharing instruction to another electronic conference control device; and a screen sharing processor that, upon reception from another electronic conference control device of a sharing instruction and a screen image to be shared, instructs the common screen management unit or the common cut screen management unit to manage information regarding the transmitted screen image according to the sharing instruction.