Patent Document ID: 8307293
Application ID: 12621138

Base Claim:
1. A discussion support apparatus comprising: a memory that stores plural pieces of discussion state information including first discussion state information and second discussion state information, wherein the first discussion state information includes a first state indicating a first topic in a discussion and a first point in time of the first state in the discussion, and the second discussion state information includes a second state indicating a second topic in the discussion and a second point in time of the second state in the discussion, and when the first topic changes to the second topic in the discussion, the discussion state information changes from the first discussion state information to the second discussion state information; a user interface that accepts at an operation point in time a discussion end operation indicating a state on another topic after the first state and the second state in the discussion; and a processor that determines whether each of the plural pieces of discussion state information having a point in time occurring prior to the operation point in time is related to said another topic, based on a comparison result between said state on another topic and each of the plural pieces of discussion state information having the point in time occurring prior to the operation point in time, and that generates, based on a result of the determining, topic-related information indicating (i) one of the first discussion state information having the first point in time occurring prior to the operation point in time and the second discussion state information having the second point in time occurring prior to the operation point in time and (ii) one of the first topic and the second topic corresponding to the one of the first discussion state information having the first point in time prior to the operation point in time and the second discussion state information having the second point in time prior to the operation point in time.

---

Claim 10:
10. The discussion support apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising: a related-screen display unit, wherein the processor updates the topic-related information in response to a request from a user received by the user interface, wherein after the user interface accepts the discussion end operation, the processor controls the related-screen display unit to display a screen related to any of the plural pieces of discussion state information that are different from the first discussion state information and the second discussion state information indicated by the topic-related information at points in time before the operation point in time when the user interface accepts the discussion end operation, and wherein the processor updates the topic-related information in response to a request from the user received by the user interface which is accepted after the related-screen display unit displays the screen related to any of the plural pieces of discussion state information, which are different from the first discussion state information and the second discussion state information indicated by the topic-related information at points in time before the operation point in time when the user interface accepts the discussion end operation.