Communications: electrical – Selective – Having indication or alarm
Reexamination Certificate
1998-07-01
2001-11-27
Vo, Nguyen T. (Department: 2682)
Communications: electrical
Selective
Having indication or alarm
C340S007280
Reexamination Certificate
active
06323754
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a two-way telecommunications system comprising a primary station for transmitting messages on a downlink and at least one secondary station for transmitting signals on an uplink and to a secondary station for use in the telecommunications system.
2. Description of the Related Art
For convenience of description the present invention will be described with reference to an acknowledgement back (or back-back) paging system but it can be applied to specific applications of a paging system, for example relaying data to a computer terminal, to cellular and cordless telephone systems and private mobile radio systems.
When a primary station transmits a message which requires a response, even if receipt of the message is acknowledged, perhaps automatically, the primary station has no means of knowing if the message has been read unless a reply has been sent on the uplink. A busy user of a secondary station not only wants to know that he has received a message but also needs to be reminded that the message needs to be answered.
The use of icons to indicate the receipt of messages by a pager and of duplicates of a previously received message is known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,347,269. However once a message has been read by the pager user the relevant icons are no longer displayed. U.S. Pat. No. 5,182,553 discloses a pager which displays a variety of functions as icons. If one of the icons is selected using a cursor, that icon is displayed by inverted video until it is deselected. Finally U.S. Pat. No. 5,552,779 discloses a wrist watch pager in which icons are used to represent common types of paging messages to a user.
OBJECT AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to represent and relay status information in a user friendly manner.
According to one aspect of the present invention there is provided a telecommunications system comprising a primary station for transmitting messages on a down-link and at least one secondary station for transmitting signals on an up-link, characterised in that the primary station includes in the down-link message indicia indicating status information associated with the down-link message which it wants to be transmitted on the up-link by the at least one secondary station, and in that the at least one secondary station comprises means for recovering the down-link message and said indicia, means for displaying the down-link message and for displaying the indicia as at least one icon, means responsive to a user of the secondary station taking an action affecting the status information, for transmitting a signal on the up-link and for altering the representation of the or at least one of the icons.
According to a second aspect of the present invention there is provided a secondary station for use in a telecommunications system in which a primary station transmits a message on a downlink together with indicia indicating status information associated with the downlink message which it wants transmitted on the uplink by the secondary station, characterised in that the secondary station comprises means for recovering the down-link message and said indicia, means for displaying the down-link message and for displaying the indicia as at least one icon, means responsive to a user of the secondary station taking an action affecting the status information, for transmitting a signal on the up-link and for altering the representation of the or at least one of the icons.
By means of the present invention the originator of a message can indicate to a recipient of the message, what actions by the recipient he/she wants to be informed about and also the recipient is provided with an aide memoire of what actions are to be taken and have been taken. Once an action has been taken, the primary station is informed automatically.
In order to inform a recipient of what actions have been taken, the relevant icons are displayed in reverse video format.
The icons may be displayed in a reserved area of a display screen which is separate from the message display area or may be displayed in tabular form.
The icons assigned to a message are stored by the secondary station and recalled each time the message is read-out and displayed so that the recipient is reminded of what actions he/she has taken and what actions need to be taken. When the message is erased, the icons associated with it are erased as well.
The uplink messages may be transmitted as pseudo-random code sequences. An advantage of sending uplink messages in this way is that two or more messages can be transmitted simultaneously without the need for synchronisation.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5182553 (1993-01-01), Kung
patent: 5185604 (1993-02-01), Nepple et al.
patent: 5347269 (1994-09-01), Vanden Heuvel et al.
patent: 5552779 (1996-09-01), Gaskill et al.
patent: 5629940 (1997-05-01), Gaskill
patent: 5881365 (1999-03-01), Yang et al.
patent: 5892455 (1999-04-01), Matsumoto
patent: 5970122 (1999-10-01), LaPorta et al.
patent: WO9635267 (1996-07-01), None
Mehrpour Naghmeh
Slobod Jack D.
U.S. Philips Corporation
Vo Nguyen T.
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