Patent ID: 7337211

Claim:
A network conference system comprising: a plurality of terminals that are connected to one another via communication lines and transmit and receive information for conducting a conference between said terminals, said terminals including: at least a promoter terminal which is used by a promoter who promotes the conference, and participant terminals which are used by participants in the conference, wherein: said promoter terminal designates said promoter terminal itself or one of said participant terminals as a speaker terminal which is used by a speaker who makes an announcement in the conference, said promoter terminal controls said speaker terminal and terminals other than said speaker terminal so that the announcement and a predetermined application are made available exclusively to said speaker terminal to result in only the speaker terminal having exclusive control of the announcement and the predetermined application, and said promoter terminal transmits and receives information for conducting the conference, to and from terminals other than said promoter terminal; and said speaker terminal includes: a conference data storing section which stores conference data and proceeding information, the conference data are produced by the predetermined application and are used for making the announcement to other terminals, the predetermined application being made available exclusively to the designated speaker terminal by said promoter terminal to result in only the designated speaker terminal having exclusive control of the predetermined application, a conference data reading section which reads out the conference data, in order to transmit the data to terminals other than said speaker terminal, and a conference data writing section which writes at least the conference data as proceeding information by means of the predetermined application.