Telephonic communications – Supervisory or control line signaling – Substation originated
Reexamination Certificate
1998-02-18
2001-02-06
Hudspeth, David R. (Department: 2741)
Telephonic communications
Supervisory or control line signaling
Substation originated
C379S216010, C455S564000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06185295
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to a method of transferring a phone number already stored in a phone number database of a phone from a memory location without speed dialing facility to a memory location with speed dialing facility, without this causing loss of information already saved. The invention moreover relates to a phone for performing the method.
Hand-portable phones give the user the possibility of storing a plurality of phone numbers electronically. The actual storage may take place in a RAM in the phone, but will typically take place in a memory on a SIM card, and the resulting database will follow the SIM card and thus the phone subscription instead of the phone. The user may typically save 50-100 phone numbers having up to 30 digits and an associated name of about letters. These data may vary from SIM card supplier to SIM card supplier. The phone numbers will typically be stored in serially numbered memory locations, e.g. 1-100. A group of phone numbers—typically the numbers stored in the memory locations 2-9—will be accessible as short dialing numbers, which means that in the idle mode of the phone the user can make a call to a phone number stored in e.g. location #3 by depressing the “3” key for e.g. 0.5-1.0 second.
This feature, convenient and very useful to the user, is available only to a small group of numbers in the total number database. It may frequently be expedient to add new numbers to the group of speed dialing numbers, since the phone numbers most frequently called frequently change. It will be possible to overwrite an existing memory location in the speed dialing number group by adding a new number, but this will involve loss of data, which will thus have to be entered again. Further, it is not desired to extend the group of speed dialing numbers, since it will be too difficult to remember the short dialing code for speed dialing numbers used less frequently.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The invention comprises a method of providing a phone number with speed dialing facility when said phone number is already stored without speed dialing facility in a phone number database, which has a first group of memory locations with associated speed dialing facility and a second group of memory locations without speed dialing facility, said method comprising indicating the phone number whose speed dialing status is to be changed, indicating a memory location with a phone number having the desired speed dialing status and interchanging the speed dialing status of the two phone numbers.
A phone number may hereby be given a desired speed dialing status by a simple operation, the only expense to the database being that a phone number already having this status merely loses it. No information is lost or has to be entered again.
The invention provides a method enabling the user with few instructions to transfer numbers already stored to the group of speed dialing numbers without losing information already saved.
In a preferred embodiment, the contents of one memory location are saved temporarily, and then the contents of the other memory location are transferred to the first location. The contents are then transferred from the intermediate memory to the other location. The interesting point of swapping the contents of the two memory locations is that the information is maintained, it being just the phone numbers which change status because of their shift in memory location.
When the phone book is entered according to the preferred embodiment, one or more items will be displayed on the display. The phone will have a scroll key by means of which the user may scroll through the list of items. The selected item will be indicated, optionally highlighted, on the display. When the user has found the item whose status he wishes to change, he is to select a destination address. As the group of memory locations with associated speed dialing facility is stored on the locations 2-9, the destination memory location is expediently selected by long depression of a one of the keys 2-9. If, e.g. the memory locations 2-19 had the speed dialing facility, the location 18 might be selected as the destination memory location by ordinary entering of “1”, while “8” was depressed for an extended period of time (long press).
The invention moreover relates to a telephone, radio telephone or handset having a phone number database having a first group of memory locations with associated speed dialing facility and a second group of memory locations without speed dialing facility. Such a phone number database may be called an electronic phone book, and it is the user of the phone who handles the contents of the database. The phone has a display on which at least a part of the contents of the of the phone number database may be displayed, a cursor for visual identification of an item on the display and a positioning device for moving the cursor between items on the display. Further, the phone has another identification device for selecting a memory location among the first group of memory locations with associated speed dialing facility, and a device for interchanging the speed dialing status of the two identified phone numbers. The preferred embodiment makes it possible, in a particularly simple procedure, to update the contents of the group of memory locations with associated speed dialing facility by transferring information already stored to one of these memory locations, without losing the information originally contained in the memory location concerned. Instead, this information is saved in the memory location whose contents have just been transferred to the group of memory locations with associated speed dialing facility.
Swapping of the contents of the two memory locations takes place in practice in that an intermediate memory receives the contents of the memory location to be transferred to the group of memory locations with associated speed dialing facility. This location is identified with a cursor in the display. The controller of the phone then transfers the contents of the memory location which has till now belonged to the group of memory locations with associated speed dialing facility to the memory location whose contents have just been transferred to the intermediate memory. When this has been done, the controller transfers the contents of the intermediate memory to the memory location which was selected as the reception location for the phone number which is to be provided with a speed dialing facility.
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Anderson Erik Paul
Frederiksen Steen Lillethorup
IB Peter
Azad Abul K.
Hudspeth David R.
Nokia Mobile Phones Limited
Perman & Green LLP
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