Patent ID: 7802261

Claim:
A system for displaying content on multiple display apparatuses using message communication, the system comprising: a server configured to store content therein; and a plurality of display apparatuses, each of the plurality of display apparatuses comprising: a device interface module configured to receive a message to display content, receive a list of content, to receive content, and receive a message to perform an operation to control the respective display apparatus from the server; a device agent module configured to create a message requesting content included in the list of content received from the server, where the device interface module has received the message containing the content list, and to transmit the message requesting content to the server through the device interface module, the device agent module configured to receive the requested content from the server through the device interface module; a content processing module configured to convert the received content into a suitable output format; a display module configured to receive the converted content from the content processing module and output the converted content; and a control and monitoring module configured to provide state information of the respective display apparatus to the server and to perform the operation to control the respective display apparatus, wherein the server is configured to manage the plurality of display apparatuses as a classified group, wherein the server transmits the requested content by scheduling, wherein at least one of the device interface module, the device agent module, and the content processing module, is a hardware module, and wherein when the display apparatus receives a message from the server through the device interface module, the device agent module determines whether the received message relates to content output or to control of the display apparatus, and when the received message relates to content output, the device agent module transmits the received message to the content processing module.