Patent ID: 7225257

Claim:
An information-display system that displays information, using one or more information-display terminals and an information-display server connected to the information-display terminals though a network, each of the information-display terminals being allocated to a predetermined person, comprising: information storing means provided in the information-display server for storing information to be displayed on the information-display terminals, the information including status information relative to the one or more predetermined persons, said status information indicating “presence” and “absence” of the predetermined persons, update notice transmitting means provided in the information-display server for transmitting a notice that there is an update of the information stored in the information storing means to the information-display terminals when the information is updated, and information acquisition and display means provided in each of the information-display terminals for acquiring automatically the updated information from the information-display server in response to the notice from the information-display server that there is an update, and for displaying the updated information, wherein different access permissions are assigned respectively to categories comprising viewers, receptionists, switchers, general affairs persons and users, and wherein viewers can peruse a presence status, receptionists can peruse and update “absence” and “presence” of persons whose presence status is to be displayed, switchers can update presence status comprising “absence”, “presence”, “out of office”, “in a conference”, and “in a meeting”, general affairs persons can edit information about persons whose presence status is to be displayed, and users can peruse and update presence status of one or more specific persons whose presence status includes “absence”, “presence”, “out of office”, “in a conference”, and “in a meeting”.