WO1999001973A1

WO1999001973A1 - Telephone apparatus and user notification method

Info

Publication number: WO1999001973A1
Application number: PCT/GB1997/001789
Authority: WO
Inventors: Russel Johnston
Original assignee: Maxon Systems Inc. (London) Ltd.
Priority date: 1997-07-03
Filing date: 1997-07-03
Publication date: 1999-01-14
Also published as: AU3353597A

Abstract

A telephone apparatus comprises identifying means for providing an identification of a caller of an incoming telephone call, association means for associating the caller identification with one of a plurality of caller categories, and notification means for notifying a user of the telephone apparatus of the caller category determined by the association means. This telephone apparatus and a corresponding method enable a user to react to an incoming telephone call immediately in an appropriate way.

Description

Telephone apparatus and user notification method

The invention concerns a telephone apparatus and a user notification method for notifying a user of a telephone apparatus of an incoming call. The invention is applicable to all kinds of telephones, including stationary and mobile telephones, desktop and hand-held telephones as well as telephones connected to a public or a private branch exchange. The invention is especially well suited to be incorporated in a hand-held telephone such as a GSM cellular telephone or some other kind of mobile telephone.

Modern telephones are typically equipped with the capability to receive and process the telephone number of a caller of an incoming telephone call. This caller number is often displayed on a visual display means. A user of the telephone may look at the display means when the telephone is ringing and decide whether he wants to accept the call and whether the caller shall be greeted in a formal or an informal way.

It is, however, difficult for the user to associate, in the short time available, a telephone number displayed by the telephone with the caller.

This problem is only partially solved by known private branch exchange systems in which a central phonebook database is provided for storing names and local telephone numbers of persons connected to the private branch exchange. In these systems, not only the telephone number but the name of a caller is displayed by the telephone. The user, however, still has to recognise the name, which can be difficult in large organisations where the central phonebook database is maintained by a system administrator. The user may not know a displayed name altogether, or he may have forgotten the name, or he may need some time to recall the name. The object of the invention is therefore to solve the above- mentioned problems and to provide a way by which a user of a telephone is enabled to react to an incoming telephone call immediately in an appropriate way.

The invention comprises a telephone apparatus according to claim 1 and a method for notifying a user of a telephone apparatus of an incoming telephone call according to claim 7.

The basic idea of the invention is to determine a caller category, for example "friend", "work", "customer", "urgent", for each incoming call, and to notify the user of the telephone of the determined caller category in an appropriate way. Knowing the caller category, the user can immediately take the appropriate action, e.g. decide whether or not to answer the incoming telephone call.

The caller category is determined by first providing an identification of the caller, which may be the caller's telephone number, and then associating the caller identification with one of a plurality of caller categories.

In a preferred embodiment, a database relating each caller identification to a caller category (and possibly to further information like the caller's name) is searched in order to determine the caller category. Such a database may be locally associated with the telephone, especially in the case of a mobile telephone. Alternatively or cumulatively, there may be a global database stored in a central memory of a public or a private branch exchange system. Especially in the case of a local phonebook database, the user may be able to define his own caller categories, and he may set and change the relation between caller identifications and caller categories according to his wishes.

In an alternative embodiment, the caller identification already comprises caller category information, and the step of associating the caller identification with the caller category may simply consist of extracting this caller category information from the caller identification.

In an especially preferred embodiment, the user is notified of the caller category by a corresponding audio signal, which may be one of a plurality of different ringing tones. The user may then know the caller category without looking at a display of the telephone. Several selectable or user-definable audio notification signals may be available, each of which representing one or more caller categories and/or other information for the user. All kinds of audible information may be used to notify the user, including tone sequences, melodies and voice notifications. The caller's name and/or telephone number and/or category may in addition be displayed by the telephone.

The user may, in further embodiments, be notified of the caller category in a visual way and/or in a tactile way, e.g. by a vibration emitter.

Further preferred embodiments of the invention are recited in the dependent claims.

In the following, a preferred sample embodiment of the invention is described in more detail. Reference is made to the (only) figure, which shows an embodiment of the telephone apparatus according to the invention.

The described telephone apparatus is a hand-held GSM cellular telephone. The telephone includes a high frequency unit 10 for sending and receiving radio frequency over an antenna 12, and an audio frequency unit 14 coupled to the high frequency unit 10 as well as to a speaker 16 and a microphone 18. A processing unit 20 is coupled to the high frequency unit 10, the audio frequency unit 14, a memory 22, a keyboard 24, a visual display means 26 and an audio signalling means 28. The memory 22 is a known non-volatile battery buffered RAM memory or any other type of non-volatile memory capable of holding, among other data, a phonebook database comprising a plurality of entries, e.g. 200 entries. Each entry comprises a field for holding the name of a possible caller, a field for holding an associated telephone number and a field for holding an associated caller category.

The visual display means 26 is a known graphic LCD display capable of displaying alphanumeric data like a telephone number of an incoming call or the name and category of a caller. The audio signalling means 28 is a piezoelectric tone generator capable of emitting, under control of the processing unit 20, a plurality of ringing tones, tone sequences and melodies. The processing unit 20 is a known low-power microcontroller comprising appropriate program routines for controlling the operation of all components of the telephone.

The high frequency unit 10 and the processing unit 20 to- gether form an identifying means for providing an identification of a caller of an incoming telephone call, the processing unit 20 and the memory 22 form an association means for associating the caller identification provided be the identifying means with one of a plurality of caller categories, and the processing unit 20, the visual display means 26 and the audio signalling means 28 form a notification means for notifying a user of the telephone of the caller category determined by the association means.

In order to activate the phonebook features of the telephone, the user must initially define entries in the phonebook database (including names, telephone numbers and categories of possible callers) using the keyboard 24. At any time, the user may change or delete these entries or add new ones. When an incoming call is received by the telephone via the antenna 12 and the high frequency unit 10, identification data containing the telephone number of the caller is determined by the processing unit 20. The telephone number is extracted from this identification data and displayed on the visual display means 26. At the same time, the phonebook database stored in memory 22 is searched for an entry containing this telephone number. If such an entry is found, its caller category field is read. Based on the caller category information determined in this way, an appropriate ringing tone, tone sequence or melody is selected and output by the audio signalling means 28 under control of the processing unit 20. The user may gather the call category of the present telephone call from this ringing tone, tone sequence or melody, and may decide whether he wants to accept the telephone call at the moment. He may then accept or refuse the telephone call in the usual way.

The telephone comprises a plurality of pre-defined ringing tones, tone sequences and melodies and a plurality of pre- defined calling categories like "friend", "customer", "work", "urgent" and so on. The memory 22 holds an association table which initially contains a default ringing tone, tone sequence or melody for each of the pre-defined calling categories. If the determined caller category is one of the pre-defined categories and if no user-defined association is available, the default ringing tone, tone sequence or melody will be selected by the processing unit 20. The user may, at any time, define new caller categories and new ringing tones. He may also create or change the association of any (pre- defined or user-defined) calling category with any (predefined or user-defined) ringing tone, tone sequence or melody. Any such new or changed association is stored in the association table contained in the memory 22 and will be used in the future. When the user of the telephone apparatus wants to make a telephone call, he may look up and search the phonebook data stored in the memory 22 by entering the first letter (s) of the name to find the appropriate telephone number.

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Claims

-1-Claims

1. A telephone apparatus comprising: identifying means for providing an identification of a caller of an incoming telephone call, association means for associating the caller identification with one of a plurality of caller categories, and - notification means for notifying a user of the telephone apparatus of the caller category determined by the association means.

2. The telephone apparatus of claim 1, in which the caller identification comprises a telephone number of the caller.

3. The telephone apparatus of claim 1 or claim 2, in which the association means comprises a memory (22) which contains phonebook data.

4. The telephone apparatus of one of claims 1 to 3 , in which the notifying means comprises an audio signalling means (28) capable of emitting a plurality of different audio signals, each of which corresponding to at least one of the caller categories.

5. The telephone apparatus of claim 4, in which the different audio signals are different ringing tones and/or tone sequences and/or melodies.

6. The telephone apparatus of one of claims 1 to 5, in which the notifying means comprises a visual display means (26) displaying a text and/or graphic representation of the caller category determined by the association means.

7. A method for notifying a user of a telephone apparatus of ^"an incoming telephone call, comprising the steps of: a) providing an identification of a caller of the incoming telephone call, b) associating the caller identi ication with one of a plurality of caller categories, and c) notifying the user of the telephone apparatus of the caller category determined in step b) .

8. The method of claim 7 , in which step b) comprises the steps of: b¹) finding an entry corresponding to the caller identification provided in step a) in a phonebook database, and b'¹) reading caller category data stored in this entry of the phonebook database.

9. The method of claim 7 or claim 8, in which step c) comprises the step of emitting one of a plurality of audio signals corresponding to the caller category determined in step b) .

10. The method of one of claims 7 to 9 , in which step c) comprises the step of displaying a text and/or graphic representation of the caller category determined in step b) .

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