Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Display driving control circuitry – Controlling the condition of display elements
Reexamination Certificate
2000-12-21
2004-04-27
Sax, Steven (Department: 2174)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Display driving control circuitry
Controlling the condition of display elements
C345S215000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06727916
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to telecommunications services and more particularly to a method and system for assisting a user to engage in an interactive chat session on a wireless handheld device.
2. Description of Related Art
Communication is a basic function of the human race. Society would be unable to function without people being able to communicate with each other. Whether it is for business or for pleasure, communication is essential to our everyday life. Although people have been communicating for over a millennium, the ability to communicate with one another over long distances is a more recent advance. Telecommunications refines the “art and science” of communication.
Telecommunications technology offers people a number of ways to interact with each other. The wireless handheld device is one of the more popular modes of communication. The wireless handheld device may be a cellular telephone, pager, or personal digital assistant (PDA), for example, that an individual may readily carry to communicate with others. The beauty of such devices is that they facilitate communication between individuals in a variety of ways, for instance, by voice and by text.
The most familiar handheld device may be the cellular telephone. For over a decade, individuals have been using the cellular telephone to chat with friends and family. The cellular telephone permits a user to communicate with another via voice. More recent advances, however, have moved the news of communication beyond that of using voice. The modem handheld wireless device may have a display screen and a character-entry device. The display screen may include, for example, a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD). The character-entry device may include, for example, a standard 12-key Dual Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF) keypad, a keyboard, a touch interface, a touch interface with handwriting recognition, a touch interface with virtual character-entry device, or a voice recognition system. The result of these features is that the wireless handheld device has become a multi-functional device facilitating text-based communications.
For example, the wireless handheld device may enable a user to engage in short message services (SMS). SMS is analogous to e-mail on a desktop computer. A user can send short written text messages to and from a wireless handheld device without actually establishing an active call session with another entity. In general, SMS allows a person to type a desired message, indicate a destination (such as a mobile identification number), and transmit an SMS message encapsulating the desired text message. The telecommunications network then transfers the message to the intended destination.
A. Microbrowser
Only recently has wireless telecommunications sufficiently advanced to permit wireless connectivity over the Internet. Landline-based computers have been used for many years to access the Internet. A more recent development, however, is the ability for wireless handheld devices to connect to the Internet. The microbrowser is one application that enables a wireless handheld device to exchange instructions with network devices on the Internet. For example, the microbrowser may exchange instructions with a server to perform functions requested by the user. The microbrowser may also interpret instructions received by the server that describe the layout and content of the display screen. The method in which a microbrowser communicates with the server typically conforms to a standard protocol. One example of such a protocol is the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP).
WAP defines the architecture for exchanging content between a wireless handheld device, a gateway, and a server. WAP typically employs a markup language for facilitating the transfer of content from the server to the wireless handheld device running a microbrowser. The markup language is a set of instructions for instructing the microbrowser to perform a particular function. For example, the markup language may instruct a microbrowser as to how to display text, when to request user input, or how to send data to a server. The language that WAP uses is Wireless Markup Language (WML). Other languages that a microbrowser may interpret include Handheld Device Markup Language (HDML) and Compact Hyper-Text Markup Language (cHTML).
“Tags” are generally the instructions of the markup language. Commonly, a “tag document” embodies at least one tag (e.g. instruction). The microbrowser may interpret the tags in the tag document and display the translated document on the display screen. In WML and HDML, the at least one tag that describes the layout of one display screen is typically referred to as a card. If at least one tag document embodies tags describing more than one card, the at least one tag document may be referred to as a “deck of cards.” A user navigates in the microbrowser environment by moving through the deck of cards. The cards may comprise information stored on the server or work in conjunction with applications residing on the server, thus permitting the user to access information resident on the server.
Typically, a card sent by the server may also be encoded to program the use of softkeys resident on the handheld device. A softkey is a programmable key that accepts input from the user. The handheld device may have one or two softkeys located below the display screen and under a label that identifies the function of the softkey. A card may program one of the two softkeys on the handheld device as a “primary key”—typically the left key with functionality related to operating the microbrowser. For example, a card may program the primary key to be a navigation key, which the user can press to browse another card.
Below is an example of an HDML tag document. It is a deck comprising three cards that each describes the weather for a particular day. The user may navigate through the cards in the tag document by using the softkeys to browse each card. The microbrowser may interpret the appropriate card and display the Hi and Lo temp on the specified day on the display of the handheld device.
<HDML VERSION=3.0>
<DISPLAY>
<ACTION TYPE=ACCEPT LABEL=Tues TASK=GO DEST=#tues>
Current temps
<BR>Hi:
60
<BR>Lo:
28
</DISPLAY>
<DISPLAY NAME=tues>
<ACTION TYPE=ACCEPT LABEL=Wed TASK=GO DEST=#wed>
Tuesday temps
<BR>Hi:
78
<BR>Lo:
36
</DISPLAY>
<DISPLAY NAME=wed>
Wednesday temps
<BR>Hi:
80
<BR>Lo:
40
</DISPLAY>
</HDML>
B. Cards
Text cards, text-entry cards, and choice cards are three common types of cards that microbrowsers display. The text card is a card that may contain text viewable on the display screen of the handheld device. The above code sample is an example of a text card. A user of a handheld device may view the weather for a certain day on the display screen as text. The text-entrry card is another microbrowser card. Using the character-input device, the text-entry card may enable the user of a handheld device to create, modify, or otherwise edit text. The user may enter text in a text-entry segment of the card, and the microbrowser may then send the text to the server.
Typically, the text-entry card comprises at least one title segment, having the title of the card, and at least one text-entry segment for entering text. If the text in the title segment is too long for the display screen to display it in full, a browser will conventionally default to display just as many of the last lines of the title as will fit on the display screen, together with the text-entry segment. A user may then use scroll keys, for instance, to scroll through the title segment so as to have the microbrowser present more of the title. Conversely,-scrolling past the end of the title may also permit the user to view more of the text-entry segment.
The microbrowser may also display a choice card. Like the entry card, the choice card has a title segment,
Sax Steven
Sprint Spectrum L.P.
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