Telephone with character keypad

Details Telephone with character keypad Telephone with character keypad

1994-10-14

2001-06-05

Isen, Forester W. (Department: 2747)

Telephonic communications

Supervisory or control line signaling

Substation originated

C379S369000, C379S370000, C379S361000, C379S110010

Reexamination Certificate

active

06243460

ABSTRACT:

TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention relates to the field of telephone station sets, and, more specifically, to a telephone station set with a plurality of buttons for generating dual-tone, multifrequency signals representing numerics and non-numeric characters.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
For many years, telephones have had keypads instead of rotary dials for entering the destination telephone number. The caller enters digits by pressing keys or buttons on this keypad. Each button causes a unique pair of tones to be sent from the telephone to the network. Each unique tone pair is recognized by the network as a different number.
FIG. 2
illustrates a typical telephone keypad wherein each button generates unique tone pairs for each number. There are seven frequency lines disposed in a four by three matrix for the twelve buttons. As each button is pushed, the pair of frequencies are activated, thus generating a unique dual-tone, multifrequency (DTMF) signal. The frequencies were selected so that they are not harmonic overtones of each other. For example, pressing the button “5” activates the frequency pair 770 Hz and 1336 Hz, which a network or other monitoring device recognizes as a “5”.
In addition to representing numeric digits, some of the buttons also are used to represent non-numeric characters. There are 3 letters associated with eight of the numbered buttons (2-9), representing the English alphabet (no Q or Z). In recent years, businesses have discovered that by forming telephone numbers using the letters on the buttons, they can create telephone numbers that were easy to remember, and consumers are more likely to call a business whose number they can easily remember. Thus, vanity numbers became a big business. Many businesses now have telephone numbers that include, in whole or part, some alphabetic form of their names or slogans. In fact, mnemonic names are now used as a telephone number for access services such as, for example, making a collect call by dialing 1-800-OPERATOR.
A problem for some consumers using these vanity numbers is caused by the fact that the letters are difficult to find. Three letters are found on each of eight buttons; they are usually much smaller in size than the numeral, and they are arranged in groups not commonly associated with each other. As a result, there is a problem in locating the required letters, resulting in dialing difficulty, delay, and frequent misdialing.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This problem is solved and a technical advance is achieved in the art by a telephone that has dual keypads. One of the keypads is a standard 12 button (1-9, 0, #, and *) keypad. The other keypad comprises a plurality of buttons having a single character on each button. Advantageously, when a character button is pressed, it causes a DTMF pair to be sent to the network, wherein the DTMF pair corresponds to one of the 12 standard DTMF pairs which are produced by the numeric keypad. The signals from the telephone set are identical to those provided by a normal telephone set.


REFERENCES:
patent: 4252994 (1981-02-01), Holloman
patent: 4533791 (1985-08-01), Read et al.
patent: 4763356 (1988-08-01), Day, Jr. et al.
patent: 4839919 (1989-06-01), Borges et al.
patent: 4885580 (1989-12-01), Noto et al.
patent: 5388154 (1995-02-01), Solomon
patent: 5467392 (1995-11-01), Norimatsu
patent: 9203884 (1992-03-01), None
DAK Industries Catalog, Fall 1984 p. 53.

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