Background and Prior Art

With more businesses using more advanced technologies, there has been an increasing need for greater technical training. Many classrooms are now capable of using computer controlled overhead viewgraphs for teaching students. See U.S. Pat. No.5,515,079 to Hauck. Furthermore, handheld laser pointers have become increasingly popular in recent years to be used by instructors to point out detail on overhead projected slides and the like. See for example, U.S. Pat. No.5,450,148 to Shu et al.

U.S. Pat. No.4,280,135to Schlossberg describes a remote pointing system where an instructor/briefer points at a screen with a laser pointer and can have the picture transmitted to a remote location. In Schlossberg, however, the instructor must manually point a laser at one screen and a second screen is required at the remote location for viewing, so that it is "essential that (an identical set of) viewgraphs at both the location of briefer 10(the transmitting location) and the remote location (the receiving location) be shown simultaneously", column 5, lines 9-12.

Other patents have been developed for allowing computer teleconferencing where participants can remotely share video, and sounds. See for example:U.S. Pat. No.4,400,724 to Fields; 5,025,314 and 5,239,373 to Tang et al.; and 5,587,928 to Jones et al.

None of the prior art patents cited, however, enable an instructor to point at a real time video image of remotely located technical equipment, that needs to be worked on (repaired, etc.), with a laser pointer so that a worker at a remote site can be directly instructed with the laser beam being selectively pointed at the equipment to be worked on.