Patent ID: RE38884

Claim:
A two-way interactive system comprising: a first terminal equipment located at a first point where a first interlocutor is present; a second terminal equipment located at a second point where a second interlocutor is present; and transmission means, arranged between said first terminal equipment and said second terminal equipment, for enabling two-way communication of at least image data of the first interlocutor and the second interlocutor, at least said first terminal equipment comprising: a display unit for displaying an image of the second interlocutor, which is received through said transmission means, on a monitor; position regulation means for regulating a position of the first interlocutor with respect to a monitor screen of said display unit; and an image pickup apparatus for enabling transmission of an image of the first interlocutor to said second terminal equipment through said transmission means, said image pickup apparatus having an image pickup unit for directly picking up the image of the first interlocutor and a support mechanism for setting said image pickup unit at a predetermined position between the first interlocutor and said monitor, wherein while an image pickup direction of said image pickup unit is set directly toward the first interlocutor, said image pickup unit is positioned so that the first interlocutor can view said image pickup unit at a position where said image pickup unit is located within an image displaying window on said monitor screen of said display unit and above a position of an eye of a monitor image of the second interlocutor. The image displaying window being a region which the monitor image of the second interlocutor is displayed.