AU755951B2

AU755951B2 - Mobile telephone and control method therefor

Info

Publication number: AU755951B2
Application number: AU36820/99A
Authority: AU
Inventors: Motoki Ota
Original assignee: NEC Corp
Current assignee: NEC Corp
Priority date: 1998-06-26
Filing date: 1999-06-28
Publication date: 2003-01-02
Anticipated expiration: 2019-06-28
Also published as: GB9915099D0; JP2000013491A; AU3682099A; GB2341040B; GB2341040A

Description

S F Ref: 470523

AUSTRALIA

PATENTS ACT 1990 COMPLETE SPECIFBIAM FOR A STANDARD PATENT

ORIGINAL

Name and Address of Applicant: Actual Inventor(s): Address for Service: Invention Title: NEC Corporation 7-1, Shiba Minato-ku Tokyo

JAPAN

Motoki Ota Spruson Ferguson, Patent Attorneys Level 33 St Martins Tower, 31 Market Street Sydney, New South Wales, 2000, Australia Mobile Telephone and Control Method Therefor The following statement is a full description of this invention, including the best method of performing it known to me/us:- 5845 1999.06/25 FRI 19:12 FAX 03 3288 3222 Katsuragi Patent SVKUSUN&~EKUUSUN 1 003/016 MOBILE TELEPHONE AND CONTROL METHOD THEREFOR BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the invention The present invention generally relates to a mobile telephone with a memory storing dialing information, and in particular to a mobile telephone having a function of managing dialing information stored in the memory.

2. Description of the Related Art A mobile telephone having an automatic dialing function with stored telephone numbers has been widely used. A plurality of telephone numbers is usually stored onto a telephone number memory until it becomes full. However, when the telephone number memory reaches capacity, it is necessary to delete an unnecessary telephone number from the telephone number memory so as to store a new telephone number thereto.

When a telephone number is deleted, it is necessary to display the telephone number on screen so that the user can check it. As a method of checking a telephone number before dialing.

there has been disclosed a number displaying method of displaying telephone numbers in decreasing order of frequency on screen in Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication Nos. 7-336426, 4-144345, and 8-9014.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a mobile telephone which can easily delete an unnecessary telephone number with safety.

In a first aspect the present invention provides a mobile telephone comprising: a display; a memory for storing a plurality of telephone numbers **and a frequency of use of each of the telephone numbers; and a controller for controlling the display such that a 1 telephone number with the lowest frequency of use is 15 displayed on the display when the memory is full, for deleting said displayed telephone number with the lowest frequency of use in response to a user's deletion .*.instruction, for controlling the display such that a o:o telephone number with a higher frequency of use is displayed on the display in response to a user's instruction to retain said telephone number with the lowest frequency of use, and for controlling the display such that S" a telephone number with a higher frequency of use is displayed on the display in response to a user's instruction to delete another telephone number following deletion of said telephone number with the lowest frequency of use.

When there is not enough memory to store a new telephone number onto the memory, the telephone number with the lowest use frequency is displayed. Therefore the user can check whether it should be deleted and can easily delete it with safety to achieve the efficient use of the memory.

Further, it is preferable that the telephone numbers are sequentially displayed in increasing order of use frequency while the user checks the telephone numbers. The user can easily select the unnecessary telephone number for deletion.

Preferably, the telephone includes an input device.

In a second aspect, the present invention provides a method of controlling a mobile telephone, comprising the steps of: storing a plurality of telephone numbers and a frequency of use of each of the telephone numbers in a memory; displaying a telephone number with the lowest 15 frequency of use when the memory is full; deleting said displayed telephone number with the .lowest frequency of use in response to a user's deletion instruction; displaying a telephone number with a higher frequency S 20 of use in response to a user's instruction to retain said S4 telephone number with the lowest frequency of use; and :i displaying a telephone number with a higher frequency of use in response to a user's instruction to delete another telephone number following deletion of said 25 telephone number with the lowest frequency of use.

S oS 1999 06/25 FRI 19:12 FAX 03 3288 3222 Katsuragi Patent SPRUSON&FERGUSON S005/016 FQ5-397 BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Fig. 1 is a block diagram showing a radio mobile telephone according to an embodiment of the present invention; Fig. 2A is a schematic diagram showing an example of the contents of a number area in a telephone number memory in Fig.

1: S. Fig. 2B is a schematic diagram showing an example of the contents of a frequency area in the telephone number memory in Fig. 1; :10 Fig. 2C is a schematic diagram showing an example of the contents of a sorted data area in the telephone number memory in Fig. 1; and 'Fig. 3 is a flowchart showing a telephone-number deleting operation according to the embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Referring to Fig. 1, there is shown a mobile telephone in accordance with the present invention. The mobile telephone is 1999 .06/25 FRI 19:13 FAX 03 3288 3222 Katsuragi Fatent VKU;UN& WKLUUN 1t006/016 F05-397 4 provided with a radio system 101 which transmits and receives a radio signal to and from a radio base station (not shown). The mobile telephone is provided with a processor 102, which is a program-controlled processor such as a central processing unit (CPU). A control program for the mobile telephone is stored in a read-only memory (ROM) 103 and runs on the processor 102 to control all operations of the mobile telephone including transmission and reception operations and a telephone number deleting operation as described later.

The mobile telephone is further provided with a telephone number memory 104 storing a plurality of telephone numbers which can be accessed by the processor 102. A keypad 105 is used by the user to do various operations such as registering of a new S telephone number, displaying of a telephone number, and deletion of a selected telephone number. Necessary information is displayed on a display 106 such as a liquid-crystal display (LCD) The telephone number memory 104 includes a telephone number storing area 201, a frequency storing area 202 for storing the number of times each telephone number has been repeatedly used, and a sorted data area 203 for storing telephone numbers which are sorted on decreasing orde of freuency. According to a deleting instruction from the user, the processor 102 refers to the sorted data area 203 to display the telephone numbers to be deleted on decreasing order of frequency on screen of the display 106.

1999 06/25 FRI 19:13 FAX 03 3288 3222 Katsuragi Patent SPRUSON&FERGUSON 61007/016 FQ5-397 Referring to Figs. 2A-2C, it is assumed that the telephone number storing area 201 stores a total of 500 telephone numbers numbered REF.0 through REF.499. In Fig. 2A, for example, dialing information consisting of name "John" and telephone number "1234567890" is stored in a location of reference number REF.0 and dialing information consisting of name "Peach Boy" and telephone number '1111111111" is stored in a location of reference number REF.499. When a telephone number is used, that is, calling or called at or from that telephone number,-the processor 102 increments a counter stored in a frequency storing area 202 for that telephone number. In this manner, the number of times each telephone number has been used is stored to the frequency storing area 202 for the corresponding reference number as shown in Fig. 2B. Here, the telephone number of REF.0 has been used five times, that of REF.1 two times, that of REF.2 has never been used, and that of REF.499 twenty times.

The processor 102 sorts the frequency data of the 500 telephone numbers in decreasing order of frequency to store the sorted data onto the sorted data area 203. The sorted data area 203 is updated when the user makes a call or when the user instructs the sorting by operating the keypad 105.

As shown in Fig. 2c, the sorted data area 203 stores the reference numbers of the 500 telephone numbers in decreasing order of frequency. Therefore, as described hereafter, according to the user's instruction, the processor 102 accesses *1999 06/25 FRI 19:13 FAX 03 3288 3222 Katsuragi Patent SPRUSON&ERGUSON @008/016 FQ5-397 6 and reads a telephone number having the lowest frequency by referring to the sorted data area 203 and controls the display 106 to display the telephone number with the lowest frequency on screen.

Referring to Fig. 3, the processor 102 checks whether the telephone number memory 104 is full (step S301) and, if it is full (YES in step S301), the processor 102 reads the telephone number having the smallest frequency from the telephone number memory 104 by referring to the sorted data area 203 (step S302).

.10 The read telephone number and its information such as the name are displayed on the display 106 (step S303).

The user confirms the telephone number to be deleted on the display 106 and, if it is to be deleted, depresses an enter key to delete it from the telephone number memory 104. When the user wants to hold that telephone number (NO in step S304), the processor 102 selects another telephone number with the second lowest frequency (step S305) and then it is displayed on screen S(step S303). In this manner, the steps S303-S305 are repeatedly performed while selecting a telephone number with next higher frequency to display it on screen until a telephone number to be deleted has been found.

When a telephone number to be deleted has been found, the user depresses the enter key (YES in step S304), which causes the selected telephone number to be deleted from the telephone number memory 104 (step S306). Such a deletion procedure (S303-S306) can be repeated by a user's instruction (step S307) As described above, when there is not enough memory to store a new telephone number onto the telephone number memory 104, the stored telephone numbers are displayed in increasing order of frequency while the user is checking whether it should be deleted. Therefore, the user can easily delete a telephone number with lower frequency with safety to achieve the efficient use of the telephone number memory 104.

Statements in this specification of the "objects of 0 0 the invention" relate to preferred embodiments of the invention, but not necessarily to all embodiments of the 15 invention falling within the claims.

The description of the invention with reference to the drawings is by way of example only.

The text of the abstract filed herewith is repeated here as part of the specification.

20 In a mobile telephone, a plurality of telephone numbers and use frequency of each telephone number are stored in a telephone number memory. When the memory is e full, a telephone number with the lowest use frequency is displayed to be checked whether it should be deleted.

Therefore the user can easily delete it with safety to achieve the efficient use of the memory.

Claims

1. A mobile telephone comprising: a display; a memory for storing a plurality of telephone numbers and a frequency of use of each of the telephone numbers; and a controller for controlling the display such that a telephone number with the lowest frequency of use is displayed on the display when the memory is full, for deleting said displayed telephone number with the lowest frequency of use in response to a user's deletion instruction, for controlling the display such that a telephone number with a higher frequency of use is displayed on the display in response to a user's instruction to retain said telephone number with the lowest frequency of use, and for controlling the display such that a telephone number with a higher frequency of use is displayed on the display in response to a user's instruction to delete another telephone number following deletion of said telephone number with the lowest frequency of use.

2. A mobile telephone according to claim 1, wherein the controller increments the stored use frequency of a telephone number when calling that telephone number.

3. A mobile telephone according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the controller increments the stored use frequency of a telephone number when called from that telephone number.

4. A mobile telephone according to any preceding claim, wherein the controller sorts the stored telephone numbers in increasing order of stored use frequency and stores sorted data in the memory in response to a user's instruction.

Y0 9 A method of controlling a mobile telephone, comprising the steps of: storing a plurality of telephone numbers and a frequency of use of each of the telephone numbers in a memory; displaying a telephone number with the lowest frequency of use when the memory is full; deleting said displayed telephone number with the lowest frequency of use in response to a user's deletion instruction; displaying a telephone number with a higher frequency of use in response to a user's instruction to retain said *telephone number with the lowest frequency of use; and 15 displaying a telephone number with a higher frequency of use in response to a user's instruction to delete another telephone number following deletion of said telephone number with the lowest frequency of use.

6. A method according to claim 5, wherein the stored 20 frequency of use of a telephone number is incremented when calling that telephone number.

7. A method according to claim 5 or 6, wherein the stored frequency of use of a telephone number is incremented when called from that telephone number.

8. A method according to any of claims 5 to 7, wherein the telephone numbers are sorted in increasing order of frequency of use and sorted data is stored in the memory in response to a user's instruction.

9. A mobile telephone substantially as herein described with reference to and as shown in Figure 1 of the accompanying drawings. A method of controlling a mobile telephone stantially as herein described with reference to Figure 3f the accompanying drawings.