WO2001043407A1

WO2001043407A1 - Pocket electronic telephone notebook

Info

Publication number: WO2001043407A1
Application number: PCT/EP2000/012292
Authority: WO
Inventors: Giuseppe Baldino
Original assignee: Giuseppe Baldino
Priority date: 1999-12-07
Filing date: 2000-12-06
Publication date: 2001-06-14
Also published as: ITSS990009U1; EP1266511A1

Abstract

A pocket electronic telephone notebook (1) to be functionally coupled to a fixed telephone network is provided. The notebook (1), which can be coupled, for example, between a wall outlet (12) of the telephone network and a telephone set (14) substantially comprises an interface (2) of the telephone network, a centrally unit (3), a display (4), an alphanumeric keypad (6) and a communication interface (7), an interlinking bus (8) and linking means for providing a coupling with an outer alphanumeric keypad (16) and a PC (27), said telephone notebook (1) being designed to provide a full identification of the calling party by displaying, in addition to the telephone number also the name of said calling party, and to allow a quick and easy storing of not yet stored calling party names. Preferably, the notebook (1) also performs, according to any desired combinations, a quick calling function, a urgency answer function, a call serving function, a SMS message reception function and so on, and can hold a CD reader therein.

Description

POCKET ELECTRONIC TELEPHONE NOTEBOOK

Background of the invention

The present invention relates to a hand-held or pocket electronic telephone notebook.

As is known, recently, in addition to traditional paper medium telephone notebooks, a plurality of different electronic and information or data processing apparatus designed for providing a lot of different combination of functions, such as the note, meeting, notebook, memo, calendar, national and world hour clock, calculator, secret store, data communication modes of operations (with a cable linking to computer systems or other information apparatus), as well as the telephone number list modes of operation, have also been developed.

Several of the above mentioned functions or modes of operations, included the telephone notebook mode, can be likewise performed by cellular phones, in which a quick call or shift-search function, to be performed by pressing a dedicated push-button or key, after having displayed on a display, in a partial manner, but sufficient to provide a efficient identification, the name of the receiver party is sometime also provided. In cellular phones the SMS message receiving function, which has encountered a very large favour in particular among young people is furthermore known.

All the above mentioned apparatus can be autonomously used, optionally in association with a PC, but, in each case, separately and independently from the fixed telephone network.

In the fixed telephony field, the Italian Telephone Company Telecom Italia S.p.A., has developed, from the beginning of the year 2000, a service called "chi e?" ("who is it") allowing to display on a telephone set display the telephone number of the calling party.

In order to fully exploit this service, the Italian Company Brondi Telefonia S.p.A. of Settimo Torinese provides similar telephone fittings, called Caller ID, Magό and Merlino to be coupled to the telephone set. The Caller ID fitting, in addition to indicating the telephone number of the calling party, has a further function, which can be displayed on the display of this fitting, with an indication "call rpt" for indicating that the displayed number has called several times, where there are likewise indicated the hour and day related to the last call, without providing, however, no indication for the previous calls. This represents a serious limitation since no urgency communication feature to be exclusively detected from the calling party number, in a given time period, such as 2 hours, is provided thereby.

The Caller ID fitting allows moreover to store the received call displayed number, within a maximum limit of 130 digital stores, after which operation it would be only possible to manually clear the numbers corresponding to the calling parties; such a clearing operation can also be automatically performed, by leaving in store only the numbers of the last 130 calls, without further loading into the store other data.

Accordingly, prior telephone apparatus such as the above mentioned Caller ID fitting designed for indicating the number of the calling parties, are affected, at first, by a practical limitation since, generally, it is possible to remember and recognize only a limited amount of telephone numbers, thereby, frequently, the number appearing on the display of the telephone or fitting would be unknown to the user, thereby loosing its calling party identifying function.

A further drawback of the above mentioned apparatus is that they allow to perform an easy calling operation only for those telephone numbers stored in the store thereof, as due to corresponding previous received calls, since the order of the stored numbers is not a clironological one but is the call recording order and, in each case, to perform a call it would be necessary to recognize the related number by a number slip scanning operation and by detecting the stored numbers to recognize that number to be called.

The fitting Magό would allow, indeed, to associate to the numbers up to 50 names. The storing of these names would be performed according to a two function key pressing code, the handling thereof is however rather complex, requires a lot of time and is subjected to possible keying errors.

Finally, it is also commonly known that, to perform a call, it would be necessary, in about 90% of the related calling operations, to deal telephone numbers including, for example, 10 digits or more, with a consequent very long time and high error rate.

Summary of the invention

Accordingly, the aim of the present invention is to provide a pocket electronic telephone notebook which could be also used as an apparatus for fixed telephony applications.

This aim is achieved, according to one aspect of the present invention, by a pocket electronic telephone notebook having the features of claim 1.

Further advantageous improvements of the invention are defined in the dependent claims.

According to claim 2, in the telephone notebook a plurality of operating functions designed for enhancing the use functional capability thereof are integrated, in particular by providing said telephone notebook with the following functions:

- a quick and safe identification of the calling party,

- an indication of the call frequency, and - an easy, quick and sure dialing of the telephone number to be called.

According to claim 3 a telephone notebook allowing an economic managing thereof, i.e. including a calling cost saving function is provided.

According to claim 4, a telephone notebook advantageously allowing to receive and display on its display the SMS messages on the fixed telephone network is further provided.

According to claim 5, the operating performance of the subject telephone notebook can be greatly enhanced by including in said notebook a built-in CD reader.

According to claim 6, the telephone notebook can be advantageously alternately used both on analogic and digital lines.

According to claim 7, the linking means for coupling the telephone notebook to the fixed telephone network are advantageously constituted by traditional standard linking cables and related coupling terminals. Obviously it should be also apparent that this linking means could comprise technically and operatively equivalent means, such as a fiber optics system.

According to claim 8, the notebook use/handling facility is enhanced, by including in said linking means for coupling the notebook to the fixed telephone network wireless linking means.

Thus, according to the present invention, a lot of different and important advantages are achieved.

In fact, whereas at a business level practically fixedly installed expensive apparatus, i.e. apparatus which cannot be considered as pocket or easily hand held apparatus, designed for exploiting on the fixed telephone network a plurality of functions to be used in business activities, such as in the TV selling or marketing fields are already known, the telephone notebook according to the invention allows to use, starting from an integrating identifying function, i.e. a telephone number and name combination, a like plurality of functions both for individual persons and as a working tool, to be suitably associated with a PC, thereby providing a low cost notebook.

Since both the telephone number and name of the calling party are now provided, as previously loaded in a store, it is possible to perform reliable, quick and full identification of the calling party thereby the called party can immediately decide to either answer or not.

Yet a further advantage is that if the calling party name has not been yet loaded in the store and, accordingly, is not displayed together with the selected telephone number, the inventive notebook would allow, upon immediately ending the telephone call, to load into the store the new name by associating it with its telephone number thereby, for following calls from the same party, in addition to the number also the calling party name will be automatically displayed.

A further advantage is that of avoiding errors in dialing the numbers to be called and calculating the calling time since, after having partially dialed the desired telephone number or name together with the identification thereof on the display, a pressing of the "call" key will provide an automatic and quick dialing of the number, without errors. This advantage would be useful, in particular, for persons encountering difficulties in dialing the telephone numbers, such as elderly persons, or blind persons, for whom a keypad including Braille characters could also be provided.

Yet a further advantage is that it would be possible to associate with each telephone number the most economically convenient telephone Company code number, while considering a lot of different parameters, such as, for example, the hour ranges, distances, conversation times and so on.

Yet a further advantage is that it is possible to recognize the frequency of not answered to calls performed by the same number, within a presettable time interval, for example 2 hours, by considering that a frequent repetition of calls would obviously means an urgency communication need.

A further important advantage is that it is possible to display on the display also the cellular telephone SMS messages, which are at present of large diffusion.

Moreover, by the provision of a built-in CD reader, it would be possible to enhance the storing capability of the telephone numbers to be called, and store said numbers on the CD, for example by dividing them according to countries, business classes, marketing classes and so on. This in turn, would provide a great quick and facility operating advantage for example for operators of the telephone or telemarket selling field. In fact, the latter could advantageously simply link the telephone notebook according to the invention to an alphanumeric PC keypad, or directly to a PC, thereby providing a greatly facilitated working performance due to the possibility of using the PC display, having a size much larger than that of the notebook, with an easier handling of the keys of the PC keypad than the much smaller keys of the telephone notebook.

Yet a further advantage is that, on a side, the telephone notebook according to the invention can be made by using substantially known components to be chosen depending on the intended functions, and, on the other side, the software portion would be already partially available on standard components and, partially, it could be easily completed by one skilled in the art based on the desired functions.

Brief description of the drawings

Further characteristics, advantages and details of the multiple function telephone notebook for fixed telephone apparatus will become more apparent hereinafter from the following disclosure of a preferred exemplary embodiment of the inventive telephone notebook which is schematically illustrated, by way of a non limitative example, in the accompanying drawings, where:

Figure 1A schematically illustrates a fixed telephone network linking;

Figure IB schematically illustrates a linking of a pocket telephone notebook according to the invention, to the fixed telephone network,

Figure 2 is a schematic top plan view illustrating a notebook according to the invention,

Figure 3 schematically illustrates, in a block diagram foπn, a preferred embodiment of the telephone notebook.

Description of the preferred embodiments

In the above mentioned figures, like components have been indicated by like reference numbers.

In figure 1A the reference number 12 shows a wall telephone outlet of a fixed telephone network, not specifically shown, into which outlet 12 a telephone plug 32 of a fixed telephone apparatus or set 14 would be conventionally plugged-in.

The pocket telephone notebook according to the invention has been shown by the reference number 1 and is provided with linking means to operatively connect said telephone notebook to the fixed telephone network, said linking means comprising, in the shown example, standard linking cables 33 respectively ending with a telephone plug 30 and a telephone female jack 31.

As shown in figure IB, for using the notebook 1 , the plug 30 must be engaged in the outlet 12, while engaging the plug 32 of the fixed telephone in the telephone female jack 3 1 .

On the other hand it should be also apparent that it would be anyhow possible to use any desired types of linking providing the necessary functional comiection to allow the telephone signals to be conveyed to the notebook, as it will be shown hereinafter, for example by a wireless linking.

More specifically, the telephone notebook 1 substantially comprises a notebook casing 2, housing therein the different notebook interconnected components which are formed, in this embodiment, by a telephone line interface 2, a central processing unit or CPU 3, a related store and clock, a display 4, an alphanumeric keypad 6 and a communications interface 7, as well as an interconnecting bus 8.

The reference number 9 shows an inlet connector to which is coupled, for example by a standard cable, the inlet telephone line II PSTN coming from the wall outlet 12 of the telephone network. An outlet connector 13 is moreover coupled, for example by a further standard cable, to a telephone apparatus or set 14, having practically unchanged functions.

The display 4 can comprise a graphics (5 x 7 dot) matrix LCD display, whereas the alphanumeric keypad 6 can be a row/column scanning keypad, preferably provided with a serial interface with an outer alphanumeric keypad 16, shown by dashed lines, such as a PC keypad.

The communication interface 7 provides for a USB linking, or a PC linking or connection.

The bus 8 can be of a micronormal type, with the related data and set addresses, or it could be of a so-called "smart" type.

The reference number 17 indicates, by the dashed line, an interface for an ISDN telephone line and related linking, for also using the telephone notebook on digital telephone lines.

Moreover, with reference to figure 1, the number 18 shows digital keys, 19 cursor keys, 21 the call key, 22 a mode key, 23 and 24 the shift and search key, respectively, for a quick searching of the stored data, and 26 a connector for linking the notebook to a PC 27 shown in figure 2 by the dashed line. The telephone notebook 1 can also comprise, for example, a call detection LED 29, and it can be power supplied from the mains through an outer power supply device and also have a battery back up power supply and a store clearing key 29. For example, a name storing capability of 1 ,000 records and a call storing capability of 100 records could be provided.

According to the invention, the inlet telephone line 1 1 and outlet telephone line 13 are always connected to one another to safely prevent possible noises on the telephone line to which the telephone notebook 1 is linked from occurring.

According to a preferred embodiment, moreover, the telephone notebook 1 could be also provided with a CD reader, not shown, for allowing the notebook to extend the notebook function to all the telephone users stored on the CD.

With respect to the operation, and due to the software function, in an practical use as a notebook proper, in a telephone combiner aspect thereof, a pulse/DTMF selection with an engagement of the line would be operated, by dialing the number and controlling the call progress, i.e. analyzing the tones and voice components and generating, based on the latter, a mechanism for waiting for the tone before starting the selecting operation, to prevent digits from being lost, and then performing, based on the answer, in the case of a busy called party, a number of call trials, while considering in this operation, for calculating the telephone call cost the starting of the call.

Moreover, if several telephone companies or operators are involved, then, by the L.C.R. (Least Cost Routing) function it would be possible to associate, during the programming, with each number to be called, the most favorable Company or operator related number code for routing the calls at the most advantageous cost.

The central processing unit 3 is provided to mainly monitor the telephone line, i.e. it must always hear the incoming calls, scan the keypad 6 and display on the display 4 the actually used functions as well as the always present functions such as the clock and so on function.

In handling the incoming calls, a CLIP detection is at first performed, for example by the above mentioned "who is it" service, and by examining then its correspondence to couple to the incoming telephone number the telephone name and, if the latter is lacking, to display only the telephone number, the corresponding name being into the store as above mentioned. The displaying on the display will be performed by operatively talking with the microprocessor bus 8.

In the quick call function it will be sufficient to perform the party to be called shift/search operation, by keying progressively a portion of the name or number to be called and, after having safely found it on the display, by pressing the "call" key, to capture the desired number and frilly read-out it, thereby automatically starting the desired telephone call.

From the above constructional and functional disclosure it should be clearly apparent that the multiple function telephone notebook for fixed telephone apparatus according to the invention allows to efficiently achieve the above mentioned aim and advantages.

In actual practice, one skilled in the art could make modifications and variations such as a changing of the function combination to be performed by the notebook or a replacement of individual components by other technically and operatively equivalent components, or suggest other ftmctional linking means for linking the notebook to the fixed telephone network, and so on, without departing from the scope of the invention as claimed in the following claims.

Claims

1. A pocket electronic telephone notebook, characterized in that said notebook comprises linking means (11 , 13; 33) for linking said notebook to a fixed telephone network (12, 13, 14) therewith said notebook is designed for cooperating in an integrate manner.

2. A telephone notebook according to Claim 1 , characterized in that said notebook comprises substantially per se known and software-assisted components, such as:

- an interface (2) of a telephone line (11),

- a central unit (3) with a related store and clock,

- a display (4),

- an alphanumeric keypad (6), and

- a comimmication interface (7), wherein said central unit (3), display (4), keypad (6) and communication interface (7) are mutually interlinked by a linking bus (8) to perform a) a frill identification function of the calling party, i.e. to identify on the display, in addition to the number, also the name of the calling party, as previously stored, or, if lacking, to easily store the calling party name upon ending the call of said calling party, either per se or in combination with other functions per se individually partially known, such as b) a call frequency or answer urgency function, or an indication on the display of the call number from a same telephone number within a set time interval, preferably a presettable time interval, for example 2 hours, and/or c) a quick and easy call function, or a number to be called search and quick composition function, said number to be called being adapted to be recovered by a partial keying of the name to be called or a telephone number thereof to identify said telephone number on said display (4).

3. A telephone notebook according to Claims 1 and 2, characterized in that said notebook further comprises a call saving function, or a function to associate with individual numbers to be called a telephone Company code number most favorable for each number to be called.

4. A telephone notebook according to one or more of the preceding claims, characterized in that said notebook further comprises a function for receiving and displaying on said display (4) SMS messages.

5. A telephone notebook according to one or more of the preceding claims, characterized in that said notebook comprises a CD reader for reading CDs holding, for example, data related to telephone users, such as regional, national, commercial class, industrial and so on data, to which the several functions to be performed by the telephone notebook can be extended.

6. A telephone notebook according to one or more of the preceding claims, characterized in that an input card (17) of a ISDN telephone line can be coupled to the linking portion between the telephone interface (2) and the central unit (3).

7. A telephone notebook according to Claim 1 , characterized in that said linking means for linking said notebook (1 ) to the fixed telephone network (12, 32, 14) comprise traditional standard cables (1 1, 13, 33) and related coupling terminals (30, 31 ) or an optic fibers and the like systems.

8. A telephone notebook according to Claim 1 , characterized in that said linking means for linking said notebook (1 ) to the telephone network comprise wireless linking means.