Telecommunications – Transmitter and receiver at same station – Radiotelephone equipment detail
Reexamination Certificate
1999-06-02
2001-07-10
Trost, William (Department: 2683)
Telecommunications
Transmitter and receiver at same station
Radiotelephone equipment detail
C455S412100, C455S466000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06259934
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The services available on GSM networks include a Short Message Service (SMS) for sending to a mobile telephone a short message consisting of a succession of alphanumeric characters, typically 160 alphanumeric characters. The short messages are usually stored temporarily in a server until the addressee is in a position to receive them. As soon as the mobile telephone to which the short message(s) are addressed makes itself known, for example by logging onto the GSM network when it is switched on, the network advises the short message server that it can deliver the message(s) to their addressee. Operators use these short messages to support services they are developing. This is the case with the directory service in particular, which is used to obtain the telephone coordinates of a subscriber. The short message can include the name of the subscriber, their address and their telephone number, for example.
Radio communication devices of the mobile telephone type usually have a display screen, a keypad, a memory for temporarily storing one or more SMS messages received by radio and a processor programmed to work with the keys of the keypad, the memory and the display screen to display SMS messages stored in the memory on the screen in response to pressing at least one key.
Some mobile telephones also offer the facility to enter data to be stored in a structured form in the memory. This can in particular be data of a directory of telephone numbers and/or addresses. Some devices offer the facility to use more than one directory.
Until now, entering the data of a directory of the above kind has required using the alphanumeric keys of the keypad of the telephone to enter each character. Each key on a mobile telephone keypad is programmed to designate at least three letters and one digit. Consequently, entering a single character may require the same key to be pressed more than once to obtain the required character. Also, entering a complete record of the directory (a directory page) requires a cursor to be moved across the display screen to position it at the beginning of each field of the record. Repetitive pressing of the keys therefore makes entering data irksome and the aim of the invention is to simplify the procedure for entering data to constitute an ordered structure stored in the memory of a radio communication device when the data is already available in that memory, for example in an SMS short message.
OBJECTS AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The basic idea of the invention is therefore to profit from the presence of a short message in the memory of the radio communication device, in particular a message containing the name, address and telephone number of a subscriber, to create and/or update a directory of telephone numbers and addresses without it being necessary to enter each character of the subscriber's name, address and telephone number.
More particularly, the invention consists in a radio communication device comprising a display screen, a keypad with keys, a first memory adapted to store temporarily a succession of characters received by radio and a processor programmed to work with the keys of the keypad, the first memory and the display screen to display on the screen said succession of characters received by radio, wherein the processor is additionally programmed to respond to pressing at least one key by advancing from an on-screen display of the succession of characters stored in said first memory to an on-screen display for entry of data to be stored in structured form in a second memory, said data entry screen showing said succession of characters stored in said first memory in order to enable processing of at least a portion of that succession of characters as data to be stored in structured form in the second memory.
It is standard practice in SMS short messages for a telephone number to appear between character string separator symbols, in particular standard symbols recognized by the processor, to enable automatic initiation of a call to a number between such symbols. In one particular embodiment of the radio communication device of the invention the keys of the keypad include a soft key which is pressed to move a cursor to the start of a character string identified by a separator symbol and another soft key which is pressed to enter that character string as data to be stored in structured form in the memory. There is therefore no longer any point in moving the cursor to identify the character string to be entered, which further simplifies the entry procedure. If the SMS short message is already structured in the image of the structure of a directory page, in other words if it is made up of a succession of character strings each of which is between character string separator symbols, and if these strings are ordered like the records of a directory page, the entire directory page can be entered either automatically or by pressing a single key. In a variant of this embodiment, the character string separator symbol could be replaced by a record field identifier.
It is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the entry of data to constitute a directory of subscribers' telephone numbers and/or addresses. It encompasses any other type of ordered data structure, for example an appointment diary.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5687216 (1997-11-01), Svensson
patent: 5737394 (1998-04-01), Anderson et al.
patent: 5969698 (1999-10-01), Richard et al.
patent: 6035189 (2000-03-01), Ali-Vehmas et al.
patent: 6055442 (2000-04-01), Rosecrans et al.
patent: 0 378 775 A2 (1990-07-01), None
patent: WO 97/04580 (1997-02-01), None
Alcatel
Sughrue Mion Zinn Macpeak & Seas, PLLC
Tran Conguan
Trost William
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