Telecommunications – Radiotelephone system – Special service
Reexamination Certificate
1997-09-03
2001-03-27
Hunter, Daniel S. (Department: 2684)
Telecommunications
Radiotelephone system
Special service
C455S567000, C379S215010
Reexamination Certificate
active
06208852
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a communication service method for a telephone such as a hand-held telephone or mobile phone and a hand-held telephone that uses such services and, more particularly, to designation and signaling of a suspend period.
Conventionally, when a person carrying a hand-held telephone is having a business talk or attending a meeting, party, or the like while his or her hand-held telephone is kept ON, such hand-held telephone informs him or her of the presence of an incoming call by a ringing tone, vibrations, or the like. Conventionally, the user answers the phone at that place or by quitting his or her seat. If the conversations made so far are interrupted since the user of the hand-held telephone answers the phone, for example, such behavior may offend the feelings of a person the user has been talking to or may cause troubles to other attendants of the meeting.
In such case, if the user turns off the power switch of the hand-held telephone in advance or simultaneously with call termination, he or she no longer troubles the person the user has been talking to or the attendants of the meeting, but cannot know business of the calling party. Furthermore, when the user turns off the power switch of the hand-held telephone in advance, he or she cannot recognize even that he or she has indeed received a call. Moreover, the calling party cannot understand the current situation of the user of the hand-held telephone, and cannot find out when the user will answer the phone, thus feeling anxiety and irritation.
Such problem is also posed when the user of the hand-held telephone turns off the power switch if he or she is traveling by some traffic facility or wants to rest.
Note that the following service is available. With this service, a call to be placed to the OFF hand-held telephone is received by a hand-held telephone service center instead to receive the corresponding message, and the user of the hand-held telephone inquires of the center later to hear the message. Furthermore, a service for transferring a call to a designated telephone number is also available.
However, with an automatic answering phone service, a message is delivered to the called party after a certain delay time, and during this delay time, the calling party cannot detect the state of the called party. On the other hand, with a call transfer service, another person must attend at the destination of call transfer. As described above, with these services, some problems remain unsolved.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention has been made to solve the conventional problems and has as its object to provide a communication service method, a telephone, and a storage medium that stores a program for implementing the service method.
In order to achieve the above object, according to the present invention, there is provided a communication service method for a telephone, comprising the steps of:
detecting that a suspend mode is set in which incoming calls at the telephone are denied, and a suspend duration time set when the telephone has been initially set in the suspend mode;
calculating, after the telephone is initially set in the suspend mode, a remaining suspend time for which the suspend mode for the telephone is held; and
transmitting, when the telephone receives a call, to a calling party a message including information which indicates a remaining suspend time until the suspend modes terminates, and information which indicates the telephone is in the suspend mode.
The calling party can be informed of the wait time required until the called party becomes ready to communicate.
According to one preferred aspect of the present invention, in order to set the telephone in the suspend mode, a predetermined switch provided to the hand-held phone is operated.
According to one preferred aspect of the present invention, the information indicative of suspend duration time is stored in a memory of the telephone.
According to one preferred aspect of the present invention, the information indicative of suspend duration time is stored in a memory of a telephone exchange station.
According to one preferred aspect of the present invention, the message is generated by an exchange, and is sent from the exchange to the calling party. Since the exchange supports the suspend service, the load on subscribers can be reduced.
According to one preferred aspect of the present invention, the message is generated by the telephone and is sent from the telephone to the calling party. Since the individual telephones support the suspend service, processes required for changing the system can be reduced.
According to one preferred aspect of the present invention, information indicating that the telephone is set in the suspend mode is stored in a database of an exchange.
According to one preferred aspect of the present invention, when the telephone sends a suspend mode start request to an exchange, the exchange checks if the telephone is under a suspend service contract. The telephone need not check whether it is under contract for suspend services, and those under contract can be centrally managed.
According to one preferred aspect of the present invention, the suspend mode that has been started can be canceled. The convenience can be improved.
According to one preferred aspect of the present invention, a suspend service is charged for.
According to one preferred aspect of the present invention, an initial time duration of the suspend mode is fixed. The control can be simplified.
According to one preferred aspect of the present invention, the initial time duration of the suspend mode can be set by a user by an operation at the telephone. A variety of user's needs can be met.
According to one preferred aspect of the present invention, information indicating that the telephone is set in the suspend mode is managed by an exchange closest to the telephone. Subscriber information can be managed centrally.
According to one preferred aspect of the present invention, information indicating that the telephone is set in the suspend mode is managed by an exchange to which the telephone belongs. Subscriber information can be managed centrally.
In order to achieve the above object, there is provide a telephone which can set a suspend mode in which a message indicating that the telephone is currently in the suspend mode, and information indicating a time duration of the suspend mode are sent back to a calling party, comprising:
a first switch which allows a user to set the suspend mode.
According to one preferred aspect of the present invention, the telephone further comprises a second switch which allows a user to set an initial suspend duration time. A telephone which can be used in both the system in which the suspend service is supported by the exchange and the system in which the suspend service is supported by the telephone itself, can be provided.
According to one preferred aspect of the present invention, the telephone further comprises a third switch for canceling the suspend mode that has been started. A telephone which can be used in both the system in which the suspend service is supported by the exchange and the system in which the suspend service is supported by the telephone itself, can be provided.
According to one preferred aspect of the present invention, the telephone further comprises means for sending an identification number of the telephone and a request command indicating that the suspend mode is started to an exchange in response to an operation of the first switch. A telephone which is used in the system in which the suspend service is supported by the exchange can be provided.
According to one preferred aspect of the present invention, the telephone further comprises means for generating a message which informs the calling party that the telephone is in the suspend mode and of a time duration required until the suspend mode ends when the telephone set in the suspend mode receives a call. A telephone which is used in the system in which the suspend service is supported
Hunter Daniel S.
Merchant & Gould P.C.
Nguyen Thuan T.
Nihon Medipack Co., Ltd.
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