Telecommunications – Transmitter and receiver at same station – Radiotelephone equipment detail
Reexamination Certificate
1998-12-30
2001-07-17
Maung, Nay (Department: 2681)
Telecommunications
Transmitter and receiver at same station
Radiotelephone equipment detail
C455S158400, C455S564000, C379S088110
Reexamination Certificate
active
06263217
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a user interface of a mobile telephone, and more particularly, to a mobile telephone which automatically rebuilds a menu tree such that a user can quickly and easily access a frequently used menu.
2. Description of the Related Art
As mobile telephones have diminished in size, certain hardware features of the mobile telephone have been compromised. For instance, with smaller displays, the number of characters that can be displayed at once is limited. Similarly, smaller input devices render it more difficult for users to input data. Despite such hardware limitations, current mobile telephones have an abundance of functions, and the number of such functions is expected to grow in the future. Thus, advanced user interfaces have been developed for mobile telephones for enabling a user to easily access the various functions in the limited hardware environment. In practice, the mobile telephone builds the various functions into a menu tree. With this approach, the user may search for a desired function by scrolling the menu tree using a scroll key on a keypad.
FIG. 1
illustrates a typical menu tree of a mobile telephone. As illustrated, menus A, B and C are “child” menus of a “parent” menu entry P, and they have a sibling relationship. Likewise, menu A is also a parent of the sibling child menus A
1
, A
2
; menu B is a parent of menus B
1
, B
2
, B
3
, and so forth. It is possible to move from one sibling menu to another sibling menu by using the scroll key on the keypad. Each time the user moves the scroll key, the display unit displays a message representing a function of a corresponding menu. While scrolling the menus, if the user selects a specific parent menu by pressing a select key on the keypad, the display unit displays a representative child menu (i.e., the first child menu displayed) of the selected menu. For example, on the assumption that a menu B
1
is a representative child menu of the menu B, if the user presses the select key when the display unit displays the menu B, the display unit will display the representative child menu B
1
. In this manner, the user can select a desired function.
One shortcoming of the conventional menu tree is that it is fixed as designed by the manufacturer. Thus, for example, if the user more frequently uses a particular child menu (e.g., menu B
3
) more than the representative child menu (B
1
), he/she will press the scroll key several times to access the target child menu B
3
, which amounts to excessive work for the user.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a mobile telephone which automatically sets a most frequently used child menu so that a user may quickly and easily access the frequently used menu.
In an illustrative embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a mobile telephone capable of automatically rebuilding a menu tree. The mobile telephone includes a nonvolatile memory for storing status information about respective menus in the menu tree, and a controller for setting frequently used menus as representative menus based on the status information stored in the nonvolatile memory. The representative menus are displayed on a display unit of the mobile telephone in preference to other menus. The nonvolatile memory has a counter field for storing information as to how frequently the respective menus are used; a child menu number field for storing information as to how many child menus are included in the respective menus; and child menu identification (ID) number fields for storing IDs of the child menus.
An illustrative method in accordance with the invention for automatically rebuilding a menu tree in a mobile telephone is also presented. The mobile telephone includes a display unit, a select key, scroll-down and scroll-up keys, and a nonvolatile memory for storing information as to how frequently respective menus are used (with usage for respective menus being stored as counts), information as to how many child menus are included in the respective menus, and ID information for the child menus. The illustrative method includes the steps of: searching the nonvolatile memory for a child menu (of a present parent menu) that has a highest count value, setting that child menu as the present parent menu; then displaying the set parent menu on the display unit. Upon detection of a select key input, the nonvolatile memory is accessed to increase a count value for the set parent menu. Upon detection of a scroll-down key input, the nonvolatile memory is searched for one of plural sibling menus (of the set parent menu) that has a second highest count value, and that sibling menu is then set to the present parent menu. Further, upon detection of a scroll-up key input, the mobile telephone searches the nonvolatile memory for the sibling menu (of the set parent menu) having a count value higher than that of the set parent menu; this sibling menu is then set as the present parent menu.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5038401 (1991-08-01), Inotsume
patent: 5432902 (1995-07-01), Matsumoto
patent: 5666502 (1997-09-01), Capps
patent: 6047197 (2000-04-01), Jarrad
patent: 6061576 (2000-05-01), Terrasson
patent: 6-152497 (1992-11-01), None
Dilworth & Barrese LLP
Maung Nay
Samsung Electronics Co,. Ltd.
Trinh Sonny
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