Off-hook telephone with temporary park feature

Details Off-hook telephone with temporary park feature Off-hook telephone with temporary park feature

1994-02-17

1995-08-08

Dwyer, James L.

Telephonic communications

Terminal

Switch or switch actuator structure

379435, 379436, H04M 100

Patent

active

054406285

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to the telephones, and more particularly to a telephone apparatus comprising a cradle and a handset.
Modern telephones, whether they be wall mounted or desk mounted, generally have an inclined base with two recesses for receiving a handset in the "on-hook" or idle condition. The cradle is designed such that the handset falls naturally into the fully inserted position and activates a switch that detects the presence of the handset to hang up the line. It is important to ensure that the handset, when placed approximately in the cradle, will automatically fall into the fully inserted position so as to be certain that the user will terminate the call upon hanging up the handset.
A common problem, which many people have experienced, is that when a call comes in for a different party from the one answering the phone, the answering party must put the handset down while he finds the person being called. He must take care not to place the handset in the cradle because to do so would cut off the calling party. Presently, most users place the handset on a desk or other surface, but in the case of wall mounted telephones this is not always possible and sometimes it is actually necessary to leave the handset suspended by its cord from the wall mounted phone.
JP 02-241251 describes an arrangement for retaining equipment in a holding state, which employs a displaceable holding member and an extra special switch provided for the purpose. This arrangement thus requires extra circuitry and additional moving parts, which make the device more complex and thus more expensive to manufacture.
An object of the present invention is to aleviate the aforementioned problem.


SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

According to the present invention there is provided a telephone apparatus comprising a base and a handset, an inclined cradle provided on said base for receiving the handset and being shaped such that a handset placed thereon normally falls naturally into a fully seated position therein, switch means responsive to the presence or absence of the handset in the cradle to place the apparatus in an "on-hook" or "off-hook" condition respectively, and co-operating means respectively on said handset and said base to permit said handset to be temporarily retained in a partially seated position on said cradle without activating said switch means so as to permit said handset to be parked temporarily on said cradle while the apparatus remains in an "off-hook" condition.
The invention is especially applicable to wall-mounted telephones. In a preferred embodiment the co-operating means comprise a lip on the outer edge of the upper recess of the cradle and a corresponding notch on the inside surface of the ear piece housing. The lip and recess can engage a pivoted paddle forming part of the switch means to lock the switch means in the "off-hook" position.
The handset can thus be temporarily parked in the off hook condition on the cradle while the answering party locates the called party. The handset can in effect be seated in the cradle in two positions: 1) a temporary park position, which does not cause the telephone to hang up, and 2) a permanent position, which activates the switch to hang up the line in the conventional manner.


BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention will now be described in more detail, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which the single figure is a diagrammatic cross-sectional view of one embodiment of a telephone apparatus in accordance with the invention.


DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

Referring now to the figure, the telephone apparatus comprises a generally rectangular base 1 mounted on a wall 2 by means of a triangular mounting bracket 3, which ensures that the base 1 extends at an incline to the vertical. The base 1 is generally of conventional configuration and provides a lower recess 4 and upper recess 5, which together form a cradle for handset 6, which has an earpiece housing 7 and a microphone housing 18.

REFERENCES:
patent: 3458666 (1969-07-01), Stromer
patent: 3997734 (1976-12-01), Clampan
patent: 4710596 (1987-12-01), Kurokawa

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