Electronic document distributing system, information display system, electronic conference system and terminal devices used for these systems

• Main Authors: Nanba, Katsuyuki, Tsuji, Sadafusa, Asai, Katsuhiko, Matsuura, Masahiko, Mandai, Makiko
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 05.07.2001

An electronic document distributing system in which a sending terminal device is connected to a plurality of receiving terminal devices via a network. Electronic documents are sent from the sending terminal device to the receiving terminal devices via the network. Simultaneously, a signal to prohibit deletion of the electronic documents is sent, and if necessary, a signal to cancel the prohibition of deletion is sent. In each of the receiving terminal devices, when a power switch is turned off, when the receiving terminal device is disconnected from the network or when a specified time passes from the sending time of the electronic documents, the prohibition of deletion is cancelled. Such an electronic document distributing system can be structured into an electronic conference system which has a terminal display device which receives and stores information sent from a host device (an electronic document server) and displays the information on a display panel. On the display panel of the terminal display device, usually, an image designated by the host device is displayed, but an arbitrary desired image can be also displayed by a key operation. The terminal display device monitors the image designated by the host device, and even while the terminal display device is displaying another image, the display device can be controlled to display the designated image by a key operation.