Classifications

• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04M11/00—Telephonic communication systems specially adapted for combination with other electrical systems
  • H04M11/08—Telephonic communication systems specially adapted for combination with other electrical systems specially adapted for optional reception of entertainment or informative matter
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04M1/00—Substation equipment, e.g. for use by subscribers
  • H04M1/247—Telephone sets including user guidance or feature selection means facilitating their use
  • H04M1/2478—Telephone terminals specially adapted for non-voice services, e.g. email, internet access

Definitions

• the present invention relates to telephone apparatus such as telephones and facsimile machines of the type connected to a public service telephone network for making and receiving telephone calls and to such apparatus having message displays.
• Telephone calls originating from or received at the telephone apparatus are typically routed via a local exchange connected to one or more networks for inland or overseas calls.
• a residence or workplace would be provided with telephone sockets into which connection is made by appropriate wiring from the telephone apparatus and signal lines, which may include optical fibre links, provide connection to the local exchange .
• a display typically in the form of a liquid crystal display screen, driven by a processor and indicating call number information and optionally date and time information to the user.
• a pager system for portable pager devices to receive messages from a radio pager transmission via radio waves, typically VHF, and for a pager device to include a liquid crystal display to present a message addressed to a specific pager device or broadcast to a group of pager devices by a paging control centre from which messages are originated on demand by users of the pager system. Typically users contact the paging control centre by telephone and request transmission of a text message to the specified device (s ) .
• EP-A-0344672 to provide a public telephone with a display for presenting advertising information and information specifically requested interactively by a user using data stored in the telephone apparatus or transmitted from a remote site. The displayed information may be transmitted via a satellite communication or radio system, enabling the displayed information to be broadcast other than via the telephone lines used by the telephone. It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved telephone apparatus having improved display facilities .
• telephone apparatus comprising: (a) communication means operable to make and receive telephone calls for sending and receiving communications signals;
• display means operable to present a display of information to a user of the communication means ;
• memory means for storing information to be displayed;
• detecting means operable to detect an event associated with use of the communication means
• control means operable to control the display means to present the display of the information stored in the memory means to the user in response to said detection by said detection means .
• the control means is a processor which controls the display means by running a display program which processes display data, both program code and display data being stored in the memory means and updated periodically using broadcast signals.
• the broadcast signals may be wireless signals received via an antenna and receiving circuit.
• the broadcast signals may be received via a network such as the Internet or private data network and input to the apparatus by means of a suitable decoder.
• the telephone apparatus is a mobile telephone
• the broadcast signals may be received via a channel of a mobile telephone cellular network.
• the events which trigger the display of information may be detected as the starting or ending of a telephone call or may be dependent upon detection of digits in the communications signals forming part of dialled telephone numbers, network access codes or call line identification.
• Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of a communication system including a public service telephone network and having telephone apparatus connected to the network and arranged to receive broadcast information;
• Figure 2 is a schematic external plan view of a telephone in accordance with the present invention.
• FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of the internal components of the telephone of Figure 2;
• Figure 4A is a schematic diagram of the contents of a broadcast message
• Figure 4B is a schematic diagram of the contents of a Random Access Memory containing current message and address information
• Figure 5 is a schematic flowchart illustrating a process for displaying information
• Figure 6 is a schematic flowchart illustrating a method of updating current message data and presentation control data in the Random Access Memory of the terminal;
• Figure 7 is an external view of an alternative telephone apparatus;
• Figure 8 is an external view of a further alternative apparatus including a graphic display
• Figure 8A is a view of an alternative graphic display
• FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram of functional components of the telephone apparatus of Figure 8.
• Figure 10 is a flowchart representing a display control process
• Figure 11 is a flowchart showing a control display process in a route dependent mode.
• Figure 12 is a flowchart showing a display control process in a route independent mode
• Figure 13 is a schematic diagram illustrating the broadcasting of messages to a telephone via a cable network
• Figure 14 is a schematic diagram illustrating connection of a telephone for receiving broadcast messages via the Internet
• Figure 14A is a schematic diagram illustrating connection of a telephone for receiving broadcast messages via a private data network
• Figure 15 is an illustration of a further embodiment including a smart card reader/writer
• Figure 16 is a schematic component diagram of the telephone of Figure 15;
• Figure 17 is a flowchart illustrating the output of a smart card token using the telephone of Figures 15 and 16;
• Figure 18 is a schematic diagram illustrating the broadcast of tokens to the telephone of Figures 15 to 17 via the Internet and a cable network;
• Figure 19 is a schematic diagram of a mobile telephone having a display of information and connected to a cellular network
• Figure 20 is a schematic diagram of a routing module having a display of information
• Figure 21 is a schematic flowchart illustrating interactive display of information.
• Figure 22 is a schematic diagram of a facsimile machine in which the display of information is printed.
• Figure 1 shows a communications system 1 in which a telephone 2 is connected to local exchange 3 by means of a signal line 4.
• the local exchange 3 is connected to networks 5a, 5b and 5c and other local exchanges 6 and 7 , together forming a public service telephone network 8.
• the telephone 2 is provided with an antenna 12 suitable for receiving VHF signals at 153.35 MHz, this being the type of broadcast electromagnetic signals currently used by radio pager transmitters of paging systems .
• VHF broadcast electromagnetic
• Each of the further telephone apparatus 9, 10 and 11 is similarly provided with a respective antenna 12.
• the external appearance of the telephone 2 is shown in plan view in Figure 2 and consists of a base 20 to which is removably mounted a handset 21 which includes a microphone 22 and speaker 23.
• the handset 21 is connected to the base 20 via cable (not shown).
• a key pad 24 is provided for the user input of telephone numbers .
• a display screen 25 is mounted on the base 20 and presents a visible message consisting of a graphic portion 26 and a text portion 27.
• the display 25 also includes a number display area 28 in which dialled telephone numbers are displayed in conventional manner and a clock display area 29 in which the time of day is indicated .
• a loudspeaker 30 is also mounted in the base 20.
• FIG 3 illustrates the internal structure of the telephone 2 in schematic form.
• the telephone 2 comprises a two wire to four wire converter 31, the input side of which is connected to a telephone socket 32 via an OFF- hook switch 33.
• a ringer 34 is positioned between the two wires. The contacts of the OFF-hook switch 33 are closed when the hand set 21 shown in Figure 2 is lifted by the user, thereby creating an OFF-hook event to initiate a telephone call.
• a dual tone multi-frequency (DTMF) generator 35 is also connected to the two wire to four wire converter 31 in parallel with the microphone 22, the DTMF generator having its input connected to an output of a processor 36.
• the processor 36 is also connected to the key pad 24, a ROM 38, a RAM 39 and a clock 40.
• a display 41 has its input connected to an output of the processor 36 and has outputs driving the display screen 25 and the loudspeaker 30, these components together providing an information presenting system 43.
• a demodulator 42 has its input connected to aerial 12. The demodulator 42 has an output connected to a protocol decoder 45 whose output is connected to an input of the processor 36.
• a user initiates a telephone call by lifting the handset 21, this being detected by the OFF-hook switch 33 which connects the two wire to four wire converter 31 to the telephone socket 32 and provides an OFF-hook signal to processor 36.
• the user On hearing a dial tone via the earpiece speaker 23, the user then inputs the telephone number of the destination telephone to be called using the key pad 24 which sends the numerical data defining the call number to the processor 36.
• the processor actuates the DTMF generator which outputs dial tone signals transmitted via the two to four wire converter 31 to the telephone socket 32 for outgoing transmission via the signal line 4.
• a call is terminated by replacing the handset 21, this being detected by means of the OFF-hook switch 33.
• the control centre 13 transmits the broadcast signals in which the encoded broadcast information has contents as illustrated schematically in Figure 4A.
• the broadcast message will typically be addressed to a group of telephone apparatus but every message will contain a message address block 50 which contains address data which determines whether the telephone 2 is the intended recipient of the message.
• a presentation control information block 56 contains presentation control information defining the manner in which message data contained in a message data block 55 is presented.
• the telephone 2 stores terminal address information 70 in RAM 39, the terminal address information representing an identifier specific to the telephone and also user determined configuration data, and processes only broadcast information containing corresponding message address data 50.
• Figure 6 illustrates schematically the process of updating the current message data and presentation control data in response to received messages.
• the message data 55, presentation control information 56 and message address data 50 are temporarily stored at step 68 in a buffer memory and the address data compared at step 69 with the terminal address information. If there is correspondence between the message address data 50 and the terminal address information 70, the stored current message data 71 and current presentation control information 72 stored in the RAM 39 are updated at step 73 to correspond to the received broadcast message. If there is no correspondence between the terminal address data 70 and the message address data 50 then the current message data and current presentation control information are not updated and remain unchanged .
• Figure 4B illustrates schematically the storage in RAM 39 of the current message data 71, current presentation control information 72 and the terminal address data 70.
• the user may configure operation of the telephone by setting the user configured component of the current terminal address data 70 to any one of a set of available addresses which may for example be comprised of a number of fields indicating leisure interests, professional activities, age and sex of the user so that the user may configure the telephone to present only those messages likely to be of interest.
• the telephone therefore presents messages in accordance with the current message data 71 and current presentation control information 72, these being updated periodically whenever a broadcast message having the appropriate address data 50 is received.
• the user configured component of the terminal address data may be reconfigured at any time by the user inputting an appropriate command code via the keypad 24 and during this configuration mode the processor 36 may control the display screen 25 to present a menu of options to the user for selection via appropriate input using the keypad 24.
• the current presentation control information 72 contains an identifier indicating the nature of the display as being text, audio, video, animated graphic, or a combination thereof .
• the current presentation control information 72 may also include an identifier indicating that the display is to generate using a display application (the term "display application” is here used to indicate a program or application such as a Java Applet which may be downloaded to the telephone processor to process message data 71 and determine for example a scrolling pattern or image movement to be used in graphic displays) .
• the display application may be changed periodically to present each set of message data in a corresponding new style, the display apparatus being stored in memory as display program code which is updated by new code included in message data 55 contained in a broadcast message, or a series of broadcast messages containing segments of program code.
• the presentation control information block 72 also contains information determining the timing of display of presenting a message such as for example the following options : • Option 1: display the message when received in real time from the pager message control centre and continue to display until a further message received;
• Option 2 receive and store the message information and display the message for a predetermined time interval initiated in response to detection of an OFF-hook event when the user initiates a telephone call by lifting the handset;
• Option 3 receive and store the message information and initiate the presentation of the message in response to detection of an ON-hook event when a user terminates a telephone call by replacing the handset;
• Option 4 receive and store the message information and initiate the presentation of the message in response to detection of an outgoing call being dialled so as to include a specific code, for example a code indicating that the dialled telephone number is an international call from the United Kingdom to the United States, the display message being an advertising message relating to this destination;
• a specific code for example a code indicating that the dialled telephone number is an international call from the United Kingdom to the United States, the display message being an advertising message relating to this destination;
• Option 5 receive and store the message information and initiate the presentation of the message in response to detection of a call line identifier code contained in an incoming telephone call, the call line identifier providing an indication of the geographical location of the call origin, and the message presented being selected to relate to this geographical location;
• Option 6 receive and store the message information and initiate the presentation of the message in response to detection of the line state indicating a dialled number to be engaged or unattainable
• the presentation control information block 72 also contains information determining the time interval during which the message is to be displayed in options 2 and 3 above .
• the current message data block 71 contains data relating to the information content of message to be presented by the information presenting system 43 constituted by the display 25, speaker 30, display interface 41, processor 36 and RAM 39 of Figure 3.
• paging systems are adapted to transmit alphanumeric messages of a specified maximum. This maximum limit varies by paging standard, protocol and operator but is generally in the region of 240 characters. This may be sufficient for simple text messages to be displayed in an embodiment of the present invention by the information presenting system 43 where for example a moving text message is presented in text portion 27. Longer messages may however be transmitted for storage in the RAM 39 by dividing the message content into a number of portions and forwarding the portions in separate consecutive pager transmissions .
• An advertising message may be presented in the display screen 25 of Figure 2 as text in the text portion 27 which may be expanded to fill the entire display screen 25.
• the text message may be scrolled from side to side or up and down during the period for which the message is displayed.
• the content of the advertising information may for example be to publicise a special offer on telephone calls or current call charges such as "Pathfinder now offers peak time call charges to the United States for 13 pence per minute".
• the current message is tailored to the requirements of the user, as determined by the configuration data contained in the terminal address information, so that advertising messages can be targeted to appropriate recipients.
• Other text messages may for example contain trading prices on the stock market presented in the form of a Stock Ticker or other commercial information of specific interest to the user such as sports results .
• a further alternative of interactive messages is disclosed below with reference to Figure 21.
• a second example of presenting information by the information presenting system 43 is to display an animated graphic image in the graphic portion 26 of display 25. If it is not required to simultaneously display text then the graphic portion may expand to fill the whole display screen 25.
• the graphic display may include text or have a separate text portion 27 as shown in Figure 2.
• the graphic display may represent an advertising logo or display other visual graphic information such as a weather chart, or road map.
• the visual display is not required and an audible message is presented via the speaker 30.
• the message may be encoded in a compact form suitable for driving a speech synthesiser contained in the interface 41.
• the audible message may include music.
• a fourth example is an audible message delivered via the earpiece speaker 23, requiring connection between the display interface 41 and the two wires connected to the earpiece speaker 23, this connection being illustrated by connecting wires 44 in Figure 3 which are shown as broken lines representing that this is an alternative option.
• the display screen 25 may optionally be also controlled via the display interface 41 in this example to display text corresponding to the synthesised speech delivered to the earpiece speaker 23.
• FIG. 5 A procedure for controlling the elapsed time of a display and the time at which the display is initiated is illustrated in Figure 5. It is to be understood that in referring to "display" any of the above examples of presenting a message are to be included as possible alternatives.
• the processor 36 checks at step 60 whether the telephone is in an OFF-hook state, as detected by the OFF-hook switch 33. If the OFF-hook state is detected, the processor checks for any change in status to the ON-hook state. When the ON-hook state is detected at step 62, the display is initiated and a timer started. The elapsed time is measured by means of clock 40 and when the elapsed time has reached a predetermined time interval as determined at step 65, the display is ended at step 66.
• Figure 7 shows an alternative telephone 2 in which the display is presented solely in the form of text contained in a text portion 27 of the display screen 25, in addition to a number display area 28 and clock display area 29.
• Text within the text portion 27 is scrolled in a manner determined by a display application stored in RAM 39, the circuit of the telephone of Figure 7 corresponding substantially to that shown in Figure 3.
• the text portion 27 displays a 2x20 character display of text stored in RAM as stored display data which is periodically updated from broadcast message data in broadcast signals.
• the display application controlling the manner in which the text is displayed is similarly defined by stored display program code which is periodically updated using broadcast message data contained in broadcast signals .
• Figure 8 illustrates a further embodiment which will be described using corresponding references to those of previous figures where appropriate for corresponding elements.
• a telephone 2 includes a display screen 25 which, in response to use of the telephone by a user to make or receive a telephone call, displays an advertising message in the form of an animated graphic display in a graphic portion 26 of the display screen, the displayed information including a text portion 80.
• Figure 9 illustrates schematically the functional elements of the apparatus of Figure 8 in which a processor 36 controls operation of both a display 25 and telephone communication circuits 81.
• the telephone communication circuits 81 correspond generally to the elements 31, 32, 34 and 35 of the circuit of Figure 3 and function to enable telephone calls to be made and received for sending and receiving communications signals 82.
• a receiver circuit 83 is provided for receiving the input of broadcast signals 84 which are separate and distinct from the communications signals 82 and are received via a separate input 85.
• the input 85 is connected externally to an interface (not shown) allowing signals from a cable distribution network, internet modem or other means of broadcasting signals which do not require the placing of a telephone call to the telephone 2 itself for the transmission of information.
• Broadcast signals are "addressed" to specific users by including "address information", i.e. identification data which enables the receiving telephone apparatus to select only information which is relevant to the requirements or preference of the user.
• the telephone of Figures 8 and 9 includes a memory represented in Figure 9 as RAM 39 and which contains a number of memory areas as represented schematically.
• a buffer memory 86 is used to initially store all data contained in broadcast signals 84 input to the processor 36 from the receiver circuit 83. Address information contained in the broadcast data stored in the buffer memory is compared with apparatus ID data 87 and user configuration data 88 which together comprise terminal address data (i.e. stored identifying information) which acts as a filter for selecting only specific broadcast messages.
• the information contained in the buffer memory 86 is used to update stored display data 89 and/or stored display program code 90, depending upon the content of the broadcast message data held in the buffer memory 86.
• the presentation control data 91 stored in RAM 39 may similarly be updated if required together with information contained in a look-up table 92 used for selecting a display program and display data.
• a detector circuit 93 is represented in Figure 9 as monitoring the status of the telephone communication circuits 81 so as to input to the processor 36 detection signals 94 representative of events associated with use of the telephone communication circuits 81.
• Such detection may correspond to sensing actuation of the off- hook switch 33 shown in Figure 3 to detect transition between the ON and OFF-hook status of the telephone circuit.
• the detection signals 94 may also be representative of dialled tones representing telephone numbers or prefixes added to telephone numbers by a low cost routing module 95.
• the low cost routing module 95 is operable to respond to the telephone number dialled when making an outgoing call by determining a least cost route for choice of network by which the call is to be routed to its destination and to automatically prefix the dialled telephone number with a code determining the least cost route by routing the call to a network node defined by the prefixed code.
• the low cost routing module 95 is controlled by the processor 36 which refers to a look-up table 96 in order to determine the appropriate code for least cost routing.
• the data stored in the routing look-up table 96 is also periodically updated by including appropriate data in a broadcast signal received by the receiver circuit 83 and, after being temporarily stored in buffer memory 86 for analysis as to whether updating is appropriate, overwriting part or all of the look up table 96 with the new data received via the broadcast.
• the processor 36 monitors at step 100 the status of the telephone communication circuits 81 by means of the detector circuit 93 in order to determine whether the telephone communication circuits 81 are being used.
• the processor refers at step 102 to the presentation control data 91 stored in the RAM 39 in order to determine the current operating mode.
• the processor selects operation according to a routine 107 in which the control of the display in a route dependent mode follows the steps of Figure 11.
• the processor detects whether the call is an outgoing call and if so, the outgoing number is detected at step 111.
• the processor 36 refers to the look-up table 92 to determine pointers to selected display data 89 and selected display program code 90.
• a display program is thereby selected and run by the processor 36 using the selected display data.
• the display program is an Applet generating a graphic picture of an aeroplane and clouds in which text contained in the display data is inserted in text portions 80.
• Such a display of information is appropriate for example in a case where the detected code of the outgoing call is the telephone number of an airline reservation office.
• Figure 8A shows a further example of a display appropriate where the detected code of the telephone number is that of a shipping line.
• the appropriate text can be an advertising message, perhaps of a competitor, or of a supplier of a related service such as insurance.
• the graphic display is animated to provide both movement of the generated stylised image and to provide scrolling of the text if appropriate.
• the processor detects that the call is an incoming call
• the call line identifier of the incoming call is detected at step 118.
• the selected display program and display data are then looked up at steps 112 and 113.
• the display is initiated when a cue to start the display is detected at step 114 of Figure 11, the cue being typically the time at which the receiver is replaced into the on-hook condition.
• various alternatives are possible including for example a cue which initiates the display when the telephone circuit initially goes OFF-hook.
• the display continues to be generated in step 117 until detection at step 105 of Figure 10 of a cue to end the display.
• the cue to end the display may correspond to determining that elapsed time has reached a preset value measured from commencement of the display.
• step 103 of Figure 10 If at step 103 of Figure 10 the mode of operation of the display control is determined to be other than route dependent, display is controlled at step 106 using display data and display program data determined in accordance with the presentation control data 91.
• Control of the display in a route independent mode is illustrated schematically at Figure 12.
• the processor makes no reference to the dialled telephone number or prefix code, this mode being appropriate for incoming calls as well as outgoing calls where the presentation control data 91 determines that the display is to be independent of the selected route.
• the processor 36 monitors the status of the telephone communication circuits 81 to sense the ON/OFF-hook status .
• the processor 36 refers to the presentation control data 91 to determine pointers to display data and display program code stored in the RAM in areas 89 and 90 at steps 122 and 123.
• the processor awaits detection of a cue to commence the display, in this example the cue being a transition from off-hook to on-hook, and the processor then runs the selected display program using the selected display data at step 125.
• Figure 13 illustrates the manner in which the telephone 2 of Figures 8 and 9 may be connected to receive the broadcast signals 84 via a cable network.
• Figure 13 illustrates schematically a typical connection of the telephone 2 including low cost routing module 95 to a decoder 130 for an optical cable network.
• the decoder 130 provides decoding of optical signals received from the network to provide a television signal output 131 received by a television receiver 132.
• the decoder 130 also provides decoding of optical signals to output broadcast signals 84 which are input via the broadcast signal input 85 shown in Figure 9 to provide updating signals for data stored in memory as described above, thereby enabling both the display functions and the low cost routing module functions to receive updated broadcast information independently of operation of telephone communication signals 82 which are input via a separate input and handled separately by the decoder 130.
• the digital data transmitted via the decoder 130 may be packetised data using existing proprietary transmission systems or protocols such as UDP, a one-way transmission protocol which is a derivative of TCP internet protocol .
• the data transmitted as a multi-point broadcast may be communicated to a local cable network 143 as shown in Figure 14 via the internet 141 using an internet service provider 142.
• the communications signals 82 are routed via the cable network 143 to the public service telephone network 144.
• a control centre 145 distributes the broadcast information via the internet 141.
• Figure 14A illustrates an alternative arrangement in which a private data network 146 provides communication between a control centre 145 and a local network 143 to which the decoder 130 is connected.
• Figure 15 illustrates a further embodiment in which a telephone having the configuration of Figure 9 additionally includes a smart card reader/writer 150 allowing a smart card to be inserted into the telephone 2.
• the telephone 2 of Figure 15 will be described using corresponding references to those of preceding figures where appropriate for corresponding elements and the description with reference to Figures 9 to 14 applies equally to the embodiment of Figure 15.
• Figure 16 illustrates the modified component diagram of the telephone including the smart card reader/writer connected to processor 36, a smart card 151 being insertable by a user for read/write operation and removable for use in transporting electronic coupons .
• Figure 17 illustrates schematically the way in which such a smart card may be utilised.
• a user makes or receives a telephone call using the telephone 2 and at step 169 the processor 36 selects a display message using any of the criteria described above.
• the processor 36 awaits a cue to initiate the display, the cue typically being the termination of the call as detected by the receiver being replaced into the on-hook position so that the on-hook signal serves as a cue.
• a message is displayed, following the cue, to display a graphic message as described above, and including in the message an offer for the user to accept a token or coupon redeemable at a retail outlet.
• the user inputs via the keypad 24 a response either accepting or declining the offer.
• the processor 36 determines whether the user response requires a token to be output and, if so, outputs at step 173 a write instruction to the smart card writer.
• the smart card 151 includes an onboard processor and storage medium allowing the information defining the redeemable electronic token to be stored. The user subsequently removes the smart card 151 from the smart card reader/writer 150 and presents the smart card to a retail or service outlet where, using a further smart card reader/writer connected to the till of the retail or service outlet, the electronic token is redeemed as a discount for goods, services or cash and the data stored in the smart card amended appropriately to cancel or decrement the token value.
• electronics tokens or coupons for merchandising may be broadcast by any of the means described above, including for example wireless broadcast, internet communication, and cable network.
• FIG. 18 illustrates the manner in which a telephone having a smart card reader 150 is connected via a cable network 130 to a control centre 145 which originates the broadcast of merchandising tokens.
• a till 181 at a retail outlet has a corresponding smart card reader/writer 182 into which the user's smart card can be inserted to extract the relevant token data. Redemption of the token is notified by the till 181 to the control centre 145 via any suitable communication link, the control centre serving as a clearing house for electronic token transactions.
• Typical use of such a system of broadcasting electronic tokens would involve a service provider such as a supermarket or bank requesting the control centre operator to broadcast information which may include an advertisement, a competition, questions or details, promotional information or questions to which the user can respond by answering a questionnaire.
• the broadcast signals may be addressed to all users or only to selected users, the selection or filtering process being conducted on the above described basis of identification data contained in broadcast signals being compared with identification information stored in the receiving apparatus .
• the stored information may be configured according to particular user preference or directed specifically by the control centre to users who make a particular pattern of use of the telephone system. For example, users who frequently make overseas telephone calls are likely to be interested in promotions relating to telephone network service providers offering reduced rates for overseas calls.
• the display of the above information is typically via text in the display screen, the text typically being included in a graphic animated form and optionally accompanied by synthesized speech or music.
• Information relating to the tokens may be continuously displayed or, in the manner described above, displayed in response to use of the telephone communication means .
• Use of the system in product promotion may for example take the form of displaying a message "press 1 on your telephone keypad if you wish to take advantage of our buy 1 hamburger, get another free offer" .
• This text could be incorporated in a graphic display including the logo of the supplier and a representation of the goods.
• the data written onto the smart card may include more information than simply the number or value of the redeemable token.
• the information may for example include response to a survey or questionnaire, the date and time of the response and identification information.
• the smart card When presented to a retail or service outlet, the smart card is read at a terminal and the discount given to the user, the data on the card being transmitted to the control centre if appropriate.
• transportable memory media may be used in place of a smart card in accordance with the present invention, including re-writable optical data storage media and magnetic data storage media.
• a further alternative embodiment in which token data 174 is broadcast and stored in memory 39 relies upon the token data being presented in a displayed message to the user as an alphanumeric code. The user may then note the code and present the code information to the retail or service outlet where an operator can obtain verification of the code by referring to locally stored information or by communication with the control centre and, subject to authentification, may then redeem the token.
• This embodiment does not require the smartcard reader/writer 150 of Figure 16 but otherwise includes all of the elements shown therein.
• a unique token identification may be transmitted to each user which the user can then present to the participating sales or service outlets as described above .
• FIG 19 illustrates a further embodiment in which the telephone apparatus comprises a mobile telephone 190 and which will be described using corresponding reference numerals to those of previous figures where appropriate for corresponding elements.
• the mobile telephone 190 includes a display 25 which, in addition to displaying the alphanumeric information normally displayed in conventional mobile telephones, is operable to display stored information in a similar manner to the telephone apparatus of the embodiments described above.
• the mobile telephone 190 includes a keypad 24, a clock 40, read only memory 38 and a random access memory 39 which stores information corresponding to elements 86 to 92 and 96 of Figure 9 described above.
• the mobile telephone 190 also includes a transmitter/receiver 191 and a decoder/encoder 192 enabling communications signals 193 to be sent and received by wireless transmission.
• the mobile telephone 190 may thereby be connected to one or more cellular telephone networks 194 which are in communication with the control centre 145.
• Broadcast signals are periodically sent to the mobile telephone 190 as part of broadcast communications signals 193 in order to update the stored program code 90 and display data 89, lookup tables 96 for routing and user configuration data 88.
• the mobile telephone 190 may function interactively for display of information as described with reference to Figure 21 and may be used to transmit token data 174 facilitating display of redeemable tokens to the user in the form of displayed token codes .
• the detection of events for triggering the display may be any of the following; turning on the mobile telephone, detection of going on-hook status, detection of going off-hook status, detection of a specific telephone number dialled by the user or network access code inserted by a routing function of the processor, detection of a line state being engaged, detection of a line state being a ringing tone, detection of a line state being unattainable, or detection of an incoming call including the possibility of responding to specific call line identification .
• Such a mobile telephone 190 would include a larger screen than currently included in conventional mobile telephones and comprising a colour display screen with annotated graphics capability.
• FIG 20 illustrates a further embodiment in which a routing module is provided with a display.
• the term "routing module” is here used to define a telephone apparatus which is connected in-line between a telephone or facsimile machine and the transmission line or network decoder via which telephone calls are transmitted and received.
• a conventional telephone 200 is connected to a decoder 130 of a cable network via a routing module 201.
• the routing module functions to detect telephone numbers of outgoing calls dialled by the user and intelligently adds or alters prefixes to the telephone numbers in order to route the outgoing call via a preferred route which will usually be a least cost route.
• the module includes a display 25 corresponding to the display of previous figures and includes a processor and memory providing equivalent functions to those described above.
• the routing module 201 receives broadcast signals 202 which are received by the decoder 130 and output separately from communications signals to the module.
• Figure 22 illustrates a further alternative in which a facsimile machine 220 having a printer 221 is operable to print received images on a recording medium 222 such as plain paper.
• the facsimile machine 220 is connected to a decoder 130 of a cable network to send and receive communication signals 223.
• the facsimile machine 220 includes a processor 36 and memory 39 in similar manner to the apparatus of Figure 9 and functioning to generate data to display an image selected from stored data.
• the facsimile machine of Figure 22 however does not incorporate a separate display screen but utilises the printer 221 to present the display of information to the user as illustrated by the printed image 224 in Figure 22.
• the selection of the displayed information and the cue triggering the initiation of the display may be configured as described above in the various alternative embodiments .
• Broadcast signals 225 received via the decoder 130 are used to update the information stored in memory in similar manner to the data updating procedure described above in previous embodiments.
• the above described embodiments in which a display of information is presented to a user may optionally be modified to include an interactive display feature illustrated schematically by the flowchart of Figure 21 and which will now be described using corresponding reference numerals to those of preceding figures where appropriate for corresponding elements.
• the detector circuit 93 detects one of the above described events for triggering the display when a user makes or receives a call.
• the processor 36 selects the appropriate display program code 90 and presentation control data 91 and awaits the cue to display at step 212.
• the message is displayed at step 213 requesting a response from the user.
• a displayed message contains text stating "book cheap flights to New York using Flight Airways; press # to speak to a Flight Airways representative" .
• step 214 the user inputs a response by means of keypad 24, and the response is analysed at step 215 by the processor 36. If action is requested, the processor at step 216 actuates telephone circuits 81 to generate an outgoing telephone call to connect the telephone apparatus with a service provider. The user is thereby automatically connected to an operator to discuss his requirements, without the user having to dial the telephone number.
• step 215 If at step 215 it is detected that no action is required, the display is ended at step 217 without further action.
• the display screen in any of the above embodiments may comprise a coloured liquid crystal display to enhance the appearance of text, video or animated graphics.
• the display screen optionally may comprise a segmented alphanumeric display.
• the handset 21 of the telephone 2 in the above embodiments may be arranged to communicate by radio signal with the base 20 in known manner to avoid the need for a cable connection therebetween.
• the telephone may alternatively comprise an integral handset as a "one piece" telephone which the OFF-hook switch was a manually actuated ON-OFF switch.
• the wireless transmitter may alternatively be a satellite based system.
• FIG. 2 to 18 illustrates telephone apparatus in the form of a conventional telephone receiver. It is to be understood that telephone apparatus in the form of a facsimile machine may similarly incorporate the graphic display, moving text message display and ability to receive and store broadcast messages relating to display, least cost routing and other features of the described telephone apparatus, including for example the addition of the smart card reader/writer for broadcasting electronic coupons or tokens .
• the decoder 130 may alternatively output the broadcast memory updating messages for the telephone 2 multiplexed with the television signals 131, the input to the telephone 2 being obtained by means of a T-junction to divert a portion of the signal 131 shown in Figure 13.
• This modification would require additional decoding circuitry within the telephone 2 in order to demultiplex the signal.
• the broadcast message could be included in a vertical blanking interval in the television signal or in any other way appropriate with current television transmission format.
• a television set provided with a satellite dish and decoder box may additionally be provided with means for outputting from the decoder the broadcast messages 84 where the broadcast messages are multiplexed with the satellite transmission of television signals.
• the duration of the display may be determined with reference to an internal clock, the duration of the display having a predetermined value which may be set according to presentation control data received in the broadcast signals .
• the processor may additionally refer to the clock in order to customize the selection of displayed information according to the time of day, day of the week, or calender events.
• the detected code may simply be the initial digits of the telephone number determining its route. This may be appropriate where the initial code identifies a particular telecommunications service provider selected by the least cost route module in preference to other service providers on a competitive basis .
• the displayed message may in such instances indicate to the user the identity of the selected service provider, an advertising message specific to the service provider, or an advertising message of a competitor.
• Configuration data has been described above as being input by the user.
• Configuration data may alternatively be included in broadcast signals on the basis of data prepared centrally, the data being obtained for example from questionnaires completed by the users and provided to the control centre in order to avoid the need for the user to input data to the telephone apparatus itself .
• Configuration data may be addressed individually to individual telephone apparatus or may be directed to groups of such telephone apparatus in data broadcasts with appropriate addresses.
• a Java Applet has been described above in the context of program code downloaded in broadcast signals.
• a display may utilise a Java Applet which is embedded into the processor 36 or stored in ROM in order to process message data which is broadcast and stored in RAM.

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• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Signal Processing (AREA)
• Computer Vision & Pattern Recognition (AREA)
• Human Computer Interaction (AREA)
• Telephonic Communication Services (AREA)
• Mobile Radio Communication Systems (AREA)
• Facsimiles In General (AREA)

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Publications (1)

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• 1998
  • 1998-05-21 GB GB9810989A patent/GB2338145A/en not_active Withdrawn
• 1999
  • 1999-05-18 AU AU39452/99A patent/AU749043B2/en not_active Ceased
  • 1999-05-18 GB GB0030296A patent/GB2353667B/en not_active Expired - Lifetime
  • 1999-05-18 WO PCT/GB1999/001578 patent/WO1999060762A2/en not_active Application Discontinuation
  • 1999-05-18 CA CA002332566A patent/CA2332566A1/en not_active Abandoned
  • 1999-05-18 EP EP99922350A patent/EP1080574A2/de not_active Ceased
  • 1999-05-18 IL IL13972799A patent/IL139727A0/xx unknown

Non-Patent Citations (1)

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