Telephonic communications – Supervisory or control line signaling – Signal reception at substation
Reexamination Certificate
1999-12-21
2003-12-30
Matar, Ahmad F. (Department: 2642)
Telephonic communications
Supervisory or control line signaling
Signal reception at substation
C379S207160, C379S251000, C379S252000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06671370
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of wired, wireless or radio telecommunications, and more specifically to the field of telephone systems of which an office or a building telephone system are nonlimiting examples.
2. Description of the Related Art
As used herein, the term “ringing information” means any form of information, such as sound information and/or visual information, that is selected by a user at a calling telephone, and that is sent with a telephone phone call that is placed from the calling telephone to a receiving telephone. The form of ringing information can be a file, a search path for a file (in a server, in a telephone terminal, in a data file), a priority mark or bit, etc.
The term “ringing indication” is any indication that operates at the receiving telephone to “wake up” the receiver or receiving telephone, this wake up indication usually being in the form of sound information and/or visual information. Sound information may comprise a ringing tone, a sound file, etc. Visual information may comprise icons, a video file, etc.
A ringing indication(s) is provided to the receiving telephone in order to wake up the receiving telephone, or more specifically, in order to announce to a user at the receiving telephone that an incoming telephone call has arrived. As a result of receiving a ringing indication, usually in the form of sound information and/or visual information, sound information and/or visual information is shown at the receiving telephone.
It is common that a user can select the ringing tone of his/her telephone based upon the personal preference of the user. Every time a telephone call is thereafter received by the user, his/her phone will announce the arrival of the call by way of the preselected ringing tone.
It is also known that a caller-ID function can by provided whereby the origin of an incoming telephone call is announced on a visual display, thus enabling the recipient of the incoming call to make a decision relative to answering the call by picking up the handset, recording the call for later review, or ignoring the call.
In addition, most graphical e-mail systems provide that an e-mail message can contain a priority bit that marks the importance of the message as high, low, or normal. This feature enables the sender of an e-mail message to classify the importance of the message, and enables the receiver of the message to access the message as a function of its importance.
The concept of selectively providing for the special handling of priority calls within a mobile radiotelephone system is taught, for example, by published International Application No. WO 93/17531 (PCT/SE93/00145). More specifically, priority is realized in a cellular mobile telephone system by ascertaining that a call should be given priority, by classifying the call as a priority call when it is ascertained that priority should be given, by assigning channels preferentially to the priority call, by assigning higher quality channels preferentially to the priority call, and by through connecting or completing both ways of connection of the priority call including in allowing for more extensive paging of a mobile station than would be allowed if the call were not a priority call. This call priority service is typically offered as a premium service. Factors used in determining when a call will be granted priority include the telephone number of the call originating party, the telephone number of the call-receiving party, user information that designated a party as being entitled to priority, and telephone emergency numbers (i.e. fire, police, etc.).
It would be desirable to provide a telephone system that enables a calling user to predetermine the ringing indication that will be played or sounded and/or shown or displayed at the location of the receiving user wherein the calling user operates on-line and prior to the calling user actually placing the call. In this way, the calling user within the telephone system can, with only selected calls, announce the origin of a call to a receiving user that is within the telephone system before the receiving user actually picks up the receiving handset to answer the call. It would additionally be desirable that the calling user provide call priority information by way of sound information and/or by way of visual information at the receiving user's telephone terminal.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This invention provides for the sending or pushing of a user-selected ringing information to the recipient of a telephone call, all within the confines of a telephone system. That is, ringing information that specifies a ringing indication, such as sound information and/or visual information as preselected by a calling user, is selectively sent to a receiving telephone terminal to wake up the receiving telephone terminal and to announce the origin and/or the importance of an incoming call.
In accordance with this invention, a file, or a search path for a file, a priority mark or bit is sent with a telephone call that is placed by a calling telephone terminal to a receiving telephone terminal. The file that is sent to the receiving telephone terminal may be a ringing tone file, an icon file, etc., and it may be an audio file such as a wav file, an image file such as bmp, a video file such as mp2, etc.
When a search path for a file is sent to the receiving telephone terminal, this search path enables the receiving telephone terminal to fetch a ringing indication as was specified by the calling telephone terminal, and this fetched ringing indication is then used to announce the arrival of the call at the receiving telephone terminal by way of the fetched ringing indication, for example, fetched sound information (audio character) and/or fetched visual information (visual character).
While the invention will be described while making reference to ringing tones and/or visual icons, it is within the spirit and scope of this invention to announce the arrival of the call at the receiving telephone terminal using virtually any form of a wake-up ringing indication, of which sound information and visual information are but two examples.
While the invention will be described in detail while making reference to a telephone system such as a private or a non-public telephone system, the spirit and scope of the invention is not to be limited to this utility. For example, the invention also finds utility in a global system for mobile communications (GSM).
In accordance with the invention, the calling user within the telephone system optionally selects ringing information in the form of ringing indication(s) from a data file in a server, in a telephone handset, in the telephone system, before a telephone number is dialed. Upon completion of a connection to a recipient's handset, the selected ringing indication is active at the recipient handset to indicate how to wake up the recipient handset, and the recipient of the call can then use this ringing indication to determine whether or not to immediately answer the incoming telephone call, to record the incoming call for later review, or to ignore the incoming call.
The use of a ringing indication in the form of visual information is especially useful when the recipient handset's ringing function has been set to a low volume state or to an off state.
In accordance with this invention, a calling user uses his/her phone to pre-select ringing information in the form of a ringing indication(s) from a data file whose sound information/visual information content is preferably known to all of, or at least some of, the telephone terminal users within the telephone system. As a feature of the invention this selection from the data file may be made by way of a well-known touchscreen. Once the selection(s) has been made, the caller dials the telephone number of the intended receiving user. The ringing information (or digital bits that represent and identify the ringing information) is then sent to the receiving user for example, on a call header that operat
Heinonen Eeva-Liisa
Itävaara Jaakko
Karves Heidi
Kronstrom Kai
Lehtinen Kari
Le Karen
Matar Ahmad F.
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