GB2399255A

GB2399255A - Sending phone book messages to another communication device

Info

Publication number: GB2399255A
Application number: GB0304696A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Paul Mcsweeney; Ken Donnellan; Michael Hurley; Charles Mccarthy
Original assignee: Motorola Inc
Current assignee: Motorola Solutions Inc
Priority date: 2003-03-01
Filing date: 2003-03-01
Publication date: 2004-09-08
Anticipated expiration: 2023-03-01
Also published as: GB0304696D0; WO2004080041A1; GB2399255B

Abstract

The invention provides increased personalization of the communication device by providing access to the phone book of the communication device during temporary or permanent use of another device. A message containing phone book elements of the phone book is sent to a target communication device, for example in response to a call forward activation by the user. The message may be a SMS message.

Description

COMMUNICATION DEVICE AND METHOD OF OPERATION THEREOF

The present invention relates to a communication device and a method of operation thereof. The invention is particularly applicable to a method of operation of a communication device during a call forwarding or divert situation.

The present invention will be described within the context of a wireless communication device, such as a cellular telephone. Increasingly, wireless communication devices are being provided with the capability to communicate both voice and data, and in addition to send or receive simple text or multimedia messages. For example, SMS text messages have been standardized within the Global system for Mobile communications (GSM) standard for some time, and multimedia messaging services (MMS) have more recently been standardized within the Third Generation Partnership project (3GPP). In fact, SMS, MMS and other messaging formats have been implemented in most current and planned wireless communication systems, such as the GSM system and its evolutions; the TDMA standard IS-136; the COMA standards IS-95, IS-637, IS-91A; Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS); the Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) mobile radio system; Globalstar satellite communication system; the integrated Digital Enhanced Network (iDEN); and the Japanese Personal Digital Cellular (PDC) standard, for example Typically, wireless communication devices such as mobile telephones, and some fixed line communication devices, are provided with a phone book capability. The phone book capability enables a user to store inter alla number/name associations in the wireless communication device. Typically a user may store such number/name associations in a memory in the communication device itself.

In wireless communication devices that are provided with a Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) card, the user may also store such number/name associations in a memory on the SIM card.

When making a call or sending a text or other message using a communication device having a phone book, the user is able to select the intended recipient via a name stored in the phone book, instead of having to remember the correct number. Furthermore, when the communication device receives an incoming call or message, the call or message may be presented to the user using the name associated with the originating number, instead of the originating number. Such features enable the use of the communication device to be personalized and made easier and thus are desirable to users.

Many communication devices currently offer a call forwarding option. For example, if a wireless communication device user wishes to use another communication device, because the user's communication device has run out of power or the user's communication device is unable to access communication resources when roaming, for example, the user can use the call forwarding or divert option to divert incoming calls to a supplementary or temporary communication device.

Figure 1 is an exemplary illustration of the principle of call forwarding/divert in a communication system.

Firstly, in step 1 the communication device, such as a wireless communication device or a fixed line communication device is in an idle mode. Then, in step 2, the communication device sends a message requesting call forwarding to the communication system infrastructure in response to an indication from the user to request call forwarding. Typically, the call forward request will contain the forwarded to number (fin). The call forward request is a call forward unconditional request, is requesting that all incoming calls are forwarded to the fin.

An appropriate network infrastructure element receives the call forward request, step 3. The appropriate network infrastructure element will depend on the type of communication system. In a cellular network, the infrastructure element is the MSC. The validity of the call forward request may then be checked in step 4. For example, it may checked whether call forwarding is supported; whether the fin is a valid number; whether incoming and/or outgoing calls are barred. If the call forward request is valid, the network infrastructure element sets up call forwarding to the fin in step 5, for example by informing the Home Location Register (HLR) of a wireless communication device of the fin, and sends an acknowledgement to the communication device in step 6, which is received by the communication device, step 7.

Subsequently, when a call request is received by the communication system infrastructure (by a communication system infrastructure element that may be the same communication system infrastructure element that carried out steps 3-6 or a different communication system infrastructure element) in step 8, the call forwarding is detected, for example when the HLR of a wireless communication device is contacted for current location details for paging purposes, and the incoming call is routed to the fin.

When a user has invoked a call forward or divert option, as outlined above, the user no longer has access to the personalized phone book in the communication device.

In addition, other situations may arise in which a user may no longer have access to the phone book in their communication device. For example, when a user of a fixed line communication device is away from the fixed line communication device, such as when on vacation for example, the user no longer has access to the personalized phone book in the fixed line communication device.

Alternatively, if a user obtains a new communication device, user no longer has access to the phone book entries in the old communication device.

The present invention seeks to at least partially alleviate the drawbacks in the

prior art arrangements.

In accordance with a first aspect of the invention there is provided a method of operation of a communication device having a phone book containing phone book elements, comprising the step of sending a phone book message containing at least one phone book element to a target communication device in response to a user transfer activation.

The user transfer activation may be a user activation of call transfer to the target communication device. In this way, the personalization of the user experience even during a call forward situation is enhanced.

In accordance with a second aspect of the invention, there is provided a method of operation of a communication device having a phone book for storing phone book elements, the method comprising the steps of:determining that a received message contains at least one phone book element; and storing said at least one phone book element in the communication device phone book.

In accordance with a third aspect of the invention, there is provided a communication device comprising; a user interface; a processor: and a storage medium storing processor-implementable instructions adapted to implement the method of the invention.

In accordance with a fourth aspect of the invention, there is provided a storage medium storing processor-implementable instructions adapted to implement the method of the invention.

For a better understanding of the present invention, and to show how it may be brought into effect, reference will now be made, by way of example, to the accompanying drawings, in which: Figure 1 is an exemplary illustration of the principle of call forwarding/divert in a communication system; Figure 2 is a diagram of the main functional components of an exemplary wireless communication device; Figure 3 illustrates a first aspect of a method of operation of the wireless communication device of Figure 2; Figure 4 shows an exemplary phone book message; Figure 5 illustrates a second aspect of a method of operation of the wireless communication device of Figure 3.

The present invention is applicable to any wireless communication device incorporating a phone book, such as mobile radio devices, wirelessenabled laptop computers, wireless-enabled personal digital assistants (PDAs), as will be apparent to a skilled person. In addition, the invention may also be applied to wireline communication devices incorporating a phone book, as will be apparent to a skilled person.

The present invention will now be described with reference to a call forwarding situation in a wireless communication system as an exemplary embodiment. A diagram of the main functional components of an exemplary wireless communication device 10 is shown in Figure 1. As will be apparent to a skilled person, only those functional components of the wireless communication device that are necessary for an understanding of the invention have been described.

The wireless communication device 10 has a processor 20 for carrying out operational processing for the wireless communication device 10. The wireless communications device also has a communication section 30 for providing wireless communication with a remote base station 40 which in turn is connected to a communication network(not shown) for providing communication services to the wireless communication device 10. The communication section 30 typically includes an antenna, a modulation/demodulation section, and a coding/decoding section, for example, as will be known to a skilled person, and thus will not be described further herein. The communication section 30 is coupled to the processor 20.

The wireless communication device 10 also has a Man Machine Interface (MMI) for providing an interface between the wireless communication device 10 and the user of the wireless communication device 10. Typically, the MMI 50 enables the wireless communication device to receive text, voice, symbol or other information from the user, for example via a microphone, key pad touch screen or the like, and to provide text, voice or symbol information to the user, for example via a speaker, display or the like. The MMI 50 is also coupled to the processor 20.

The wireless communication device 10 also has a program memory 60 in which is stored a program 70 containing processor instructions for operation of the wireless communication device 10. The program 70 may contain a number of different program elements or sub-routines containing processor instructions for a variety of different tasks, for example: for exchanging signals with the remote base station 40 to establish a voice communication; for sending or receiving a text, multimedia or other message; for communicating with the user via the MMI 50; for routine communications, such as location updates or signal measurement reports, with the remote base station 40. Specifically, a call forward sub-routine program element 710 is provided in accordance with the described embodiment.

In addition a modified message program element 720 is provided in accordance with the described embodiment. The operation of the call forward sub-routine program element 710 and the modified message program element 720 will be described below.

The wireless communication device 10 also has a phone book memory 80 containing a phone book 90. The phone book typically contains a plurality of phone book elements 90a, 90b etc comprising at least phone number/name associations chosen by the user of the wireless communication device.

Advantageously, the phone numbers and names may be stored in respective

fields 91 and 92.

Although a single processor 20 has been shown in the functional block diagram shown in Figure 2, it will be understood by a skilled person that communication device 10 may have two or more processors for carrying out all processing and computing required for operation of the communication device 10, and the number of processors and the allocation of processing functions to the processors is a matter of design choice for a skilled person. In addition, although a program memory and a phone book memory are shown separately, a skilled person will understand that these memories may be provided as different logical memories within the same physical memory, or may be provided in different physical memories, and program memory 60 may be provided as separate physical or logical memories for different parts of the program 70. In addition, typically memory for storing other data necessary for the operation of the communication device, but not shown in Figure 2, will be required. The number and allocation of the required memories is a matter of design choice for a skilled person.

For clarity, a SIM card has not been explicitly included in the communication device shown in Figure 2. However, if the communication device has a SIM card, it will be understood that a SIM processor may carry out some of the processor functions identified above. In addition, the phonebook memory 80 may be distributed between memory in the SIM card and memory in the communication device itself.

In accordance with the described embodiment, when initiating call forwarding to a target communication device, a phone book message containing at least one phone book element is sent to the target communication device. When the target communication device receives the phone book message, the or each phone book element is stored in the target communication device phonebook memory.

As mentioned above, the phonebook memory may be memory in the target communication device, memory in a SIM associated with the target communication device, or memory in both a target communication device and a SIM.

The operation of the communication device during call forwarding and on receipt of a phonebook message will now be described with reference to Figures 3, 4 and 5.

Figure 3 illustrates the operation of a communication device during call forwarding in accordance with an embodiment. The operation of the device during this time is controlled by the call forward sub-routine program element 710 shown in Figure 2.

Firstly, as shown in step 310, there is a user activation of call forward/divert to a target communication device. This can be achieved in a number of different manners, such as by detection of voice activation by the user; by detection of touch-screen activation; by detection of key press; by combination of key presses; and/or by means of a selection of a menu item from a MMI menu, or any other user activation as will be apparent to a skilled person.

As shown in step 320, the communication device under the control of the call forward sub-routine program element 710 acts on the user activation of call forward/divert to send a call activation request to the serving communication network. The setting up of the call forward with regard to the serving communication network in step 320 is conventional, for example as defined by the operational requirements of the communication system, and is included in Figure 3 only for completeness. As the process for setting up of the call forward with regard to the serving communication network will be known to a skilled person, it will not be discussed in detail here.

It should be noted that although in Figure 3 step 320 is shown as preceding steps 330 and 340, in fact the precise ordering of step 320 with respect to steps 330 and 340 is immaterial. Specifically, the call forward activation process of step 320 may be carried out in parallel with steps 330 and 340, between steps 320 and 340 or after step 340, as a matter of design choice for a skilled person.

In step 330, the phone book elements to be sent to the target communication device in a phone book message in response to the activation of call forward are determined by the call forward sub-routine program element 710.

In an embodiment, in step 330 all phone book elements are selected by the call forward sub-routine program element 710 for sending to the target communication device. This embodiment ensures that the user has full access to their phone book via the target communication device. Although this embodiment ensures that the full personalization of the user device is maintained for the user, in some cases message size required to transfer the complete phone book cannot be justified. In these situations, only a sub-set of the phone book elements are selected by the call forward sub-routine program element 710 for sending to the target communication device.

In an alternate or additional embodiment, in step 330 the call forward sub-routine program element 710 selects all phone book elements which have previously been designated by the user as phone book elements to be transferred on call- forward. This might be achieved by providing the phone book elements with at least one additional transfer field 93 indicating whether or not the element is to be transferred on call forward. This field might be completed by the user when the phone book element is created. Advantageously this field may be modified by the user after the phone book element has been made.

In a development of this embodiment, a transfer field may indicate that the phone book element belongs to one of a plurality of groups, or to none of the groups.

Thus for example, a user could designate a phone book element as a "family" group element, or a "friends" group element or a "work" group element, for example. In step 330, therefore, the call forward subroutine program element 710 preferably initially requests an indication from the user of the group types to be forwarded, and then select the phone book elements belonging to that group: alternatively the communication device may select the groups to be sent based on a previous indication of the user.

In a further alternate or additional embodiment, the user is allowed to select at the time of call forwarding which phone book elements are to be transferred to the target communication device. Thus, in order to determine phone book elements as indicated in step 330, the call forward sub-routine program element 710 provides that user may select phone book elements to be sent in the phone book message. One or more phone book elements are selected by scrolling through the phone book or alternatively by forming a sub-group and sending the group to the target device.

The call forward sub-routine program element 710 determines the phone book elements to be forwarded to the target communication device, according to step 330 of the method of Figure 3. The call forward sub-routine program element 710 may use any one of the above methods, or a combination of any of the above methods, in the determining step 330, or may use other methods as will e apparent to a skilled person.

In step 340, the call forward sub-routine program element 710 sends a message to the target communication device including the phone book elements identified in step 330. It should be noted that it is not essential that the steps 330 and 340 are carried out in the order shown and the order is a matter of design consideration for a skilled person. In particular, a message might initially be prepared and the phone element data could be determined/identified later and added to the message prior to the message being sent to the target communication device.

The message may be formed in a number of different ways, as will be apparent to a skilled person. The message may preferably be formed by concatenating a phone book message identifier with phone book elements. If the message type chosen restricts the number of characters per message to less than the total number of characters required, a plurality of messages are required.

An exemplary structure of a suitable phone book message 400 is shown in Figure 4. The exemplary message shown in Figure 4 is an SMS message as used within the GSM system and its evolutions.

The phone book message 400 comprises a phone book message identifier 410.

The function of the phonebook message identifier 410 is to enable the target communication device to identify the incoming message as a phone book message 400. In the exemplary illustrated embodiment, the phone book message identifier410 is the texVsymbol string "%%A%%" The phone book message identifier 410 is followed by the phone book elements 420 that are to be transferred to the target communication device. The phone book elements may be separated and divided by any suitable syntax: in the illustrated embodiment of the invention, the phone book elements are divided by semi-colons and within a phone book element the number is separated from the name by a comma.

As is illustrated in the exemplary embodiment shown in Figure 4, the number part of the phone book element may represent an international number, such as in the case of phone book element 421; or the number part of the phone book element may represent a number on another network such as in the case of phone book element 422; or the number of the phone book element may represent a number on the same network such as in the case of phone book element 423.

Depending on the serving communication system, it may be necessary to send the required number of phone book elements in a series of separate messages.

For example, SMS messages are restricted to a certain number of characters, for example to 160 characters in a GSM system, and so if a large number of phone book elements are to be transferred, more than one SMS message will be required.

The phone book message 400 may have a message indicator 430. The function of the message indicator 430 is to inform the target communication device when more than one message is being used to send the phone book elements. The message indicator may be a simple bit indicating "another message coming" or "this is the last message" and/or the messages may be numbered so that the target communication device can detect missing messages for example.

Alternatively, another unique text string may be added to the message, or may be incorporated into a phone book message identifier.

However, any suitable type of message may be used to send the phone book elements to the target communication device, as will be apparent to a skilled person. In particular, existing SMS messages may be used to implement the phonebook messages, as explained above, or standard MMS messages or other message types may also be used in a similar manner. The use of a unique text string in such a message enables standard messages to be re-used to provide the phone book message functionality. Alternatively, it would be possible to provide a dedicated phone book message within the communication system, for example having a unique message header. Alternatively or additionally, the phone book message can be provided by way of a data call (whether circuit switched or packet data) from the originating communication device to the target communication device, as will be apparent to a skilled person. Alternatively, an IR, Bluetooth _, WEAN or Internet message may be used to provide the phonebook message.

In one embodiment the numbers and/or the names sent are compressed to use up the minimum resources during the phone book transfer. This arrangement will be of particular benefit when the phonebook message is sent to the target communication device using resource-limited means, for example when using SMS messages as the phonebook message.

Thus, for example, the maximum length required for a name and number for a phonebook element is typically 33 alphanumeric characters. Since typically a GSM SMS message can have a maximum of 160 characters, a single SMS message may transfer 4 phonebook entries. However, compression techniques may be used to increase the capacity of the SMS message.

SMS compression techniques have been standardized within the GSM standard GSM03.42. The use of untrained dynamic Huffman coding allows short message lengths to be increased to around 200 characters. This algorithm does not require that the target device is aware that the message has been compressed.

Higher level compression algorithms using compression criteria such as punctuation, key words, case shifts and character frequency tables may be used.

Use of such algorithms requires the target device to store information, such as character frequency tables, in order to decipher the text.

Figure 5 illustrates the operation of the target communication device on receipt of a message in accordance with an embodiment. The operation of the device during this time is controlled by the message program element 720 shown in Figure 2.

On receipt of a message (step 510) the message program element 720 determines whether it is a phone book message containing phone book elements (step 520). This determination may be achieved in a number of ways. For example, in the case of a dedicated message type for a phone book message, the message program element 720 may determine that a message of that message type has been received. Alternatively, if an existing message type is used, for example the existing SMS message type, the presence of a phone book message identifier 410 in the message enables the message program element 720 to determine that a phone book message has been received.

If the received message is not a phone book message (step 520-no), the message is processed in the normal way (step 530). If, however the received message is a phone book message (step 520-yes) the message program element 720 may optionally alert the user to receipt of a phone book message (step 540). The message program element 720 may alert the user on receipt of each phone book message, or may alert the user on receipt of the first phone book message. The message program element 720 may also request confirmation or acceptance from the user prior to updating the phone book with the received elements (step 550). If the user does not accept updating of the phone book (because, for example, the call forwarding was done in error) no further action is taken.

If the user accepts updating of the phone book (step 550-y) the message program element 720 reads the phone book elements from the received phone book message (step 560).

Optionally, the message program element 720 may determine whether a phone book element already exists in the phone book memory of the target communication device (step 570), and K the phone book element already exists (step 570-yes) the message program element 720 does not store the phone book again, but reads the next phone book element from the message (step 560). If the phone book element is not already stored in the target communication device phone book, the message program element 720 adds the phone book element to the target communication device phone book (step 580), and repeats the above described procedure for all received phone book elements (step 590).

If the received phonebook information was compressed to save transmission resources, as outlined above, the received phone book information is preferably de-compressed and the de-compressed phone book information is then stored in the target communication device phone book.

Alternatively, the message program element 720 may add all received phone book elements to the target communication device phone book, without determining whether the entry already exists. Although this reduces the complexity of operation of the message program element 720, unnecessary duplicate entries may be made in the phone book of the target communication device.

Phone book elements of the user have thus been transferred from the original communication device to the target communication device, thus enabling the user to have access to the user's phone book elements when using the target communication device in a call forward or divert situation. Thus when initiating a call or message from the target communication device, the user has access to the user's phone book. In addition, when a call or message for the user is received by the target communication device, the call or message can be alerted to the user using phone book information.

Thus an advantageous method of operation of a communication device and a communication device has been disclosed. A message including at least one phone book entry is sent to the target communication device in a call forward or divert situation. A user of a communication device is thus able to access at least some phone book entries even when in a call forward ordivert mode of operation, thus improving ease of use of the communication device and increasing personalization of the user experience. The transfer of the phone book entries occurs automatically without user intervention in some embodiments: in other embodiments the communication device prompts the user to select the phone book entries to be forwarded as part of the call forward procedure.

In the specification, references to the operation of the communication device are intended to refer to the operation of the communication device/SIM combination where the communication device is provided with a SiM.

Although the inventive call forward sub-routine program element 710 and the message program element 720 have been described above as modified versions of existing software elements performing the call forward and message handling tasks, it should be noted that this is not necessary, and in fact the enhanced functionality may be provided by dedicated software elements accessed as necessary by conventional call forward or message handling software elements, or any other part of the program of the communication device.

Moreover, although the invention has been described with reference to call forwarding, the invention is also applicable to other situations.

Claims

CLAI MS

1. A method of operation of a communication device having a phone book containing phone book elements, comprising the step of sending a phone book message containing at least one phone book element to a target communication device in response to a user transfer activation.

2. The method of operation of a communication device as claimed in claim 1 also comprising the step of automatically selecting at least one indicated phonebook element from the communication device phone book and sending a message including said automatically selected phone book elements to the target device in response to the user transfer activation.

3. The method of operation of a communication device as claimed in claim 2 wherein a parameter or a field of the phone book elements of the phonebook are used by the communication device in the step of selecting the at least one indicated phonebook element from the communication device phone book.

4. The method of operation of a communication device as claimed in claim 3 further comprising the step of requiring user input to select the parameter

or field prior to the step of selecting.

5. The method of operation of a communication device as claimed in any preceding claim also comprising, in response to the user transfer activation, the step of requesting user input to select phone book elements from the phone book.

6. The method of operation of a communication device as claimed in any preceding claim wherein the step of sending a message comprises the step of sending a SMS message or a MMS message.

7. The method of operation of a communication device as claimed in any preceding claim wherein the message contains an identifier identifying the message as containing identified phone book elements

8. The method of operation of a communication device as claimed in claim 6 wherein the identifier is a unique alphanumeric text or symbol string in the message.

9. The method of operation of a communication device as claimed in any preceding claim comprising the step of compressing the at least one selected phonebook element prior to the step of sending the phonebook message.

10.The method of operation of a communication device as claimed in any preceding claim wherein the number sent in the message depends at least in part on the network or location of the target device.

11.The method of operation of a communication device as claimed in any preceding claim wherein the user transfer activation is a user activation of call transfer to the target communication device.

12.A method of operation of a communication device having a phone book for storing phone book elements, the method comprising the steps of: determining that a received message contains at least one phone book element storing said at least one phone book element in the communication device phone book.

13.The method of operation of a communication device as claimed in claim 12, further comprising the step of de-compressing received compressed phone book elements.

14.The method as claimed in any claim 9 further comprising the step of notifying the user of the communication device of receipt of the message containing at least one phone book element.

15.The method as claimed in any preceding claim wherein receipt of second and subsequent messages corresponding to a first message are not notified to the user of the communication device.

16.A communication device comprising; a user interface; a processor: and a storage medium storing processor-implementable instructions adapted to implement the method of any preceding claim.

17.A storage medium storing processor-implementable instructions adapted to implement the method of any preceding claim.

18. A method of operation of a communication device substantially as herein described with reference to Figures 2-4 of the accompanying drawings.

19.A method of operation of a communication device substantially as herein described with reference to Figures 2, 4 and 5 of the accompanying drawings.

20.A communication device substantially as herein described with reference to Figures 2-4 and/or with reference to Figures 2, 4 and 5 of the accompanying drawings.