Electrical computers and digital data processing systems: input/ – Input/output data processing – Peripheral configuration
Reexamination Certificate
2000-07-31
2003-12-09
Elamin, Abdelmoniem (Department: 2182)
Electrical computers and digital data processing systems: input/
Input/output data processing
Peripheral configuration
C379S433070, C455S090300, C455S566000, C455S567000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06662244
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an information terminal having a foldable structure.
2. Description of the Related Background Art
Portable information terminals of wireless communications systems for transmitting/receiving information have become very popular in recent years. Portable information terminals include those of portable telephone systems and personal handyphone systems (PHS) (hereinafter referred to as portable telephone sets).
FIG. 1
of the accompanying drawings shows a known portable telephone set comprising a housing
51
having a display section
50
, another housing
53
having a key input section
52
and a hinge section
54
, the housings
51
and
53
being adapted to be foldable relative to each other and put together.
Thus, such a portable telephone set becomes very small and hence easy to carry when it is not in use and the housings
51
and
53
are folded. Additionally, when the housings are folded, the display section
50
is protected against damage and the input section
52
is prevented from erroneous key operations.
When, on the other hand, the housings
51
and
53
are opened from each other by an appropriate angle for use, the microphone
55
and the loudspeaker of the portable telephone set become separated from each other by a distance corresponding to the distance between the mouth and one of the ears of the user to make the portable telephone set very comfortable for talking with the person at the other end of the line.
The display section
50
of the portable telephone set is used to display not only information on the ongoing telephone call but also information on unattended calls, the current condition of radio-wave propagation and so on that has to be seen frequently by the user.
Then, the housings
51
and
53
of the foldable type portable telephone set have to be opened to expose the display section
50
each time the user wants to see the information of the latter category. Therefore, a portable telephone set having a transparent viewing window
57
arranged on the housing
53
as illustrated in
FIG. 2
has been proposed to avoid the cumbersome operation of opening the housings
51
and
53
and to allow the user to see information without opening them.
Meanwhile, there is a strong demand for portable telephone sets provided with various sophisticated features of information terminals such as a large memory capacity for storing telephone numbers and other data and the capability of transmitting/receiving character data. Then, such a sophisticated portable telephone set is adapted to display on the display section
50
various character data such as the telephone number and name of a person to be stored in the memory or a written message received or to be transmitted by electronic mail.
However, the viewing window
57
arranged on the housing
53
of a portable telephone set has to be subjected to certain limitations in terms of position and area because the key input section contains mechanical contacts and occupies a considerable space. In other words, the viewing window
57
is forced to be small relative to the display section
50
so that the visibility of the display section
50
is not fully guaranteed by the viewing window
57
.
If the area of the viewing window
57
is enlarged to improve the visibility of the information displayed on the display section
50
, the intervals separating the button keys and/or the sizes of the button keys of the key input section
52
have to be reduced at the cost of the operability of the portable telephone set.
The display section
50
of known portable telephone sets is often not large enough for displaying all the character data received by way of the character transmission service of the telephone system at a time. Then, the display section
50
has to be provided with a scroll feature. In short, the display section
50
of conventional portable telephone sets is not large enough for dealing with the amount of character data normally processed at a time in the portable telephone set.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In view of the above described circumstances, it is therefore the object of the present invention to provide an information terminal comprising a first housing having a display section and a second housing having an input/display section that are adapted to be folded relative to each other to make the portable telephone set very small that is excellent in terms of operability for inputting character data and has a capability of displaying a large volume of data.
According to the invention, the above object is achieved by providing an information terminal comprising a first housing having a display section for displaying information and a second housing having an input/display section for inputting and/or displaying information, said first and second housings being linked by a hinge mechanism fitted to an end of each of them so as to allow them to be folded relative to each other with said input/display section and said display section facing each other.
An information terminal according to the invention and having the above described configuration can be made very small when the first and second housing are folded relative to each other. Additionally, the information terminal provides excellent visibility and operability because the input/display section operates both as information input means and information display means.
REFERENCES:
patent: 6377685 (2002-04-01), Krishnan
patent: 6415138 (2002-07-01), Sirola et al.
patent: 6438392 (2002-08-01), Toba
patent: 6504928 (2003-01-01), Toyooka
Elamin Abdelmoniem
Maioli Jay H.
Sony Corporation
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