JP2002140262A - Electronic mail terminal and storage medium - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To minimize an operation carried out by a user for sending a return mail to improve the usability. SOLUTION: In formation of the return mail, a controlling part 19 adds registered additional information to a mail address and uses them as sending destination information of the return mail, if the registered additional information related to the mail address included in received mail sender information as an object of the return mail is stored in an address storage area 18a.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic mail terminal such as a wireless communication terminal having an electronic mail transmitting / receiving function and a storage medium storing software for causing an electronic computer to perform processing as an electronic mail terminal.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Recently, e-mail has been easily used by people of all ages in various environments and situations.
E-mail has been frequently transmitted and received even on wireless communication terminals such as mobile telephone terminals.

[0003] Many e-mail terminals have a function of facilitating creation of a reply mail to a received mail.

[0004] That is, this type of function is such that, when the user designates the creation of a reply mail while selecting the received mail, the sender information indicated in the selected received mail is set as the destination of the reply mail. By automatically generating header information that includes the mail address of the user of the own device as the sender information while copying the information into the information, the reply mail can be created only by the user inputting the text of the mail. Things.

[0005] By the way, in addition to the mail address, any character string between "<" and ">" is allowed to be added to the destination information and the sender information of the electronic mail as additional information. In addition, a character string indicating a user name is added as additional information. That is, for example, "ta
ro@maru-shouji.co.jp <Taro Kimura> can be used as destination information and sender information, and is widely used.

[0006] The electronic mail terminal corresponding to such additional information displays the character string indicated by the additional information included in the destination information or the sender information of the received mail, thereby displaying the sender name and the electronic mail sender. This makes it possible to easily confirm the destination name, thereby improving user convenience.

[0007] However, when the above-described reply mail creation function is used, the sender information in the original received mail is used as it is as the destination information, so the information sent for the additional information is also sent as it is. It will be included in the destination information.

For this reason, when the user wants to add a title such as “to” or “sama” to the additional information of the destination information, it is necessary to manually input the additional information. This operation is troublesome even when the transmission destination is one person. However, when replying to the e-mail sent by broadcast, additional information is to be added to each of the multiple recipients. Editing is required, which is even more troublesome. In particular, in a wireless communication terminal or the like, character input must be performed using a limited number of keys, so that the work for editing the additional information as described above becomes cumbersome.

[0009]

As described above, conventionally,
If additional information was added to the sender information of the received mail, the sender information including the additional information was set as the destination information as it was in the reply mail to the received mail. If it is necessary to edit the additional information, such as adding a title to the additional information of the e-mail destination information, the user must manually edit the additional information. Was to be lowered.

The present invention has been made in view of such circumstances, and it is an object of the present invention to minimize the user's operation related to the transmission of a reply mail and improve the convenience. An electronic mail terminal and a storage medium are provided.

[0011]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a method of transmitting a reply e-mail when generating a reply e-mail with a destination e-mail address of a received e-mail as a destination address. When additional information such as registered additional information is stored in a predetermined storage means such as an address book storage area in association with the mail address to be the destination address, the additional information is transmitted to the destination of the return e-mail. There is provided additional information adding means which is added to the address as additional information and which is realized by software processing of a control unit based on software distributed and stored in a storage medium such as a memory card.

By taking such means, if the user stores the additional information in the storage means, the additional information is added to the destination address of the reply mail addressed to the mail address associated with the additional information. Information is added. Therefore, it is possible to automatically add the additional information desired by the user.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a method for generating a reply e-mail having a mail address of a sender of a received e-mail as a destination address. If the e-mail address to be matched matches the predetermined determination condition and additional information is added, the editing condition stored in a predetermined storage means such as an editing condition storage area in association with the matched determination condition is used. The information processing apparatus further includes an additional information editing unit that edits the additional information in response thereto, and is realized by software processing of a control unit based on software stored and distributed in a storage medium such as a memory card.

[0014] By adopting such means, the additional information added to the source mail address of the received e-mail to be replied becomes the editing condition corresponding to the judgment condition that the reply destination e-mail address matches. And the edited additional information is added to the destination address of the reply mail. Therefore, it is possible to automatically edit additional information that can be mechanically performed according to the conditions.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided the present invention comprising both the additional information adding means and the additional information editing means, and further comprising the additional information adding means according to a predetermined selection condition which can be set by a user. Means for selectively operating one of the means and the additional information editing means, for example, a processing method selection means realized by software processing of a control unit based on software distributed and stored in a storage medium such as a memory card. Was.

By taking such means, the addition of the additional information by the additional information adding means and the editing / addition of the additional information by the additional information editing means are selectively used at the request of the user. Therefore, the two functions can be arbitrarily used according to the user's request.

[0017]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a main configuration of a portable telephone terminal configured by applying the electronic mail terminal according to the present embodiment.

As shown in this figure, the mobile phone terminal of the present embodiment has an antenna 1, an antenna duplexer 2, and a receiver (R
X) 3, frequency synthesizer (SYN) 4, transmission unit (T
X) 5, CDMA signal processing unit 6, voice code processing unit 7, P
CM code processing unit 8, receiving amplifier 9, speaker 10, microphone 11, transmitting amplifier 12, liquid crystal display (hereinafter referred to as L
13), key unit 14, sounder 1
5, vibrator 16, memory card reader / writer 1
7, a memory unit 18 and a control unit 19.

A radio frequency signal transmitted from a base station (not shown) via a radio channel is received by an antenna 1, subjected to radio-electric signal conversion, and then supplied to an antenna duplexer 2. The antenna duplexer 2 includes a reception filter 2a
And a transmission filter 2b. The radio frequency signal transmitted from the base station via the radio channel passes through the receiving filter 2a and is provided to the receiving unit 3.

In the receiving section 3, the radio frequency signal is mixed with a receiving local oscillation signal supplied from the frequency synthesizer 4 and frequency-converted into an intermediate frequency signal. In addition,
The frequency of the reception local oscillation signal generated by frequency synthesizer 4 is specified by a control voltage from control unit 19.

The intermediate frequency signal obtained by the receiving unit 3 is C
After the orthogonal demodulation processing is performed in the DMA signal processing unit 6, the data is further despread, and converted into data of a predetermined format according to the data rate.

The result of the conversion in the CDMA signal processing unit 6 is provided to the voice code processing unit 7 and the control unit 19 as received data. Data indicating the data rate among the conversion results is provided to the control unit 19 as the reception data rate.

The voice code processing section 7 subjects the received data obtained by the CDMA signal processing section 6 to decompression processing in accordance with the reception data rate notified from the control section 19, and converts this processing result into a PCM code. This is given to the processing unit 8.

The PCM code processing section 8 includes a speech code processing section 7
To decode the received data to obtain an analog reception signal. The analog reception signal is amplified by a reception amplifier 9 and then supplied to a speaker 10, which outputs a loudspeaker.

On the other hand, the transmission voice generated by the speaker is converted by the microphone 11 into an electric signal, that is, an analog transmission signal. Then, the analog transmission signal is amplified to an appropriate level by the transmission amplifier 12, subjected to PCM encoding processing in the PCM code processing section 8, and provided to the voice code processing section 7 as transmission data.

The voice code processing section 7 includes a PCM code processing section 8
, The amount of energy of the transmitted voice is detected from the transmission data given by the controller, the data rate is determined based on the detection result, and the control unit 19 is notified. Then, the transmission data is compressed into a burst signal having a format corresponding to the data rate, and is provided to the CDMA signal processing unit 6.

The CDMA signal processing unit 6 applies a PN corresponding to a transmission channel to the burst signal compressed by the voice code processing unit 7 or the burst signal given from the control unit 19.
A spreading process is performed using a code. Then, a quadrature modulation process is performed on the processing result, and the result is provided to the transmission unit 5 as a quadrature modulation signal.

The transmitting section 5 mixes the quadrature modulated signal supplied from the CDMA signal processing section 6 with the transmitting local oscillation signal supplied from the frequency synthesizer 4 to convert it into a radio frequency signal. Based on the rate, only the effective portion of the radio frequency signal is amplified at a high frequency and applied to the antenna duplexer 2. Note that the frequency of the transmission local oscillation signal generated by the frequency synthesizer 4 is specified by a control voltage from the control unit 19.

In the radio frequency signal supplied from the transmitting section 5 to the antenna duplexer 2, only the radio frequency signal in the transmission band is supplied to the antenna 1 by the transmission filter 2b and radiated to the base station in space. You.

The LCD 13 displays an arbitrary image under the control of the control unit 19, and is used for displaying, for example, words, displaying a partner image in TV telephone communication, and displaying an image of a video distribution service.

The key unit 14 accepts an instruction input by a user regarding a telephone number, outgoing call, end call, character input, various user settings, and the like, and controls the control unit 19.
Notify.

The sounder 15 reproduces a melody and outputs various alarm sounds.

The vibrator 16 performs a vibrator operation to notify the user of the occurrence of an incoming call and the like.

A memory card MC can be mounted on the memory card reader / writer 17. Then, the memory card reader / writer 17 reads data stored in the attached memory card MC and supplies the data to the control unit 19, and writes data to the memory card MC under the control of the control unit 19.

The memory section 18 is made of, for example, a flash memory and is used to store various kinds of user setting information. A part of the storage area of the memory unit 18 is set in an address book storage area 18a and an editing condition storage area 18b.

As shown in FIG. 2, the address book storage area 18a stores a mail address in association with a name, and can store additional information as needed. The information stored in the address book storage area 18a is written by the control unit 19 in response to a user input on the key unit 14. Therefore, the additional information stored in the address book storage area 18a is information registered arbitrarily designated by the user, and is referred to as registered additional information herein.

As shown in FIG. 3, the editing condition storage area 18b stores editing conditions to be applied when performing automatic editing of additional information, which will be described later, and determination conditions for determining whether or not the editing conditions are to be applied. They are stored in association with each other. The information stored in the editing condition storage area 18b is registered as default information at the manufacturing stage, or written by the control unit 19 in response to a user input on the key unit 14.

The control unit 19 is mainly composed of, for example, a CPU, a ROM, a RAM, and the like, and performs overall control of each unit of the mobile phone terminal by software processing to realize an operation as the mobile phone terminal. The control unit 19 includes, in addition to processing means for realizing various well-known general functions of the same type of mobile phone terminal, such as control processing for enabling communication via a mobile communication network (not shown). hand,
E-mail processing means 19a, additional information adding means 19b,
Additional information editing means 19c and processing method selecting means 19d
Is realized by software processing.

Here, the e-mail processing means 19a performs a well-known process for transmitting / receiving e-mail using an e-mail service provided by the mobile communication network.

The additional information adding means 19b performs processing of adding the additional information stored in the address book storage area 18a of the memory unit 18 as additional information of the destination information of the reply mail when creating the reply mail.

When the reply mail is created, the additional information editing means 19c stores the additional information added to the sender information of the received mail to be returned in the editing condition storage area 18b.
Is automatically edited based on the information stored in the reply mail, and the edited additional information is added as additional information of the destination information of the reply mail.

The processing method selecting means 19d selectively operates one of the additional information adding means 19b and the additional information editing means 19c.

The software for realizing each of these processing means can be incorporated in the memory in the control unit 19 from the time of manufacture. However, the software is stored and distributed in the memory card MC, and distributed as needed. Can be installed in the control unit 19. Furthermore, it is also possible to download via a communication line and install it in the control unit 19.

Next, the operation of the portable telephone terminal configured as described above will be described. The operations related to voice communication and the transmission / reception of e-mail are the same as those of the existing devices of the same type, and therefore the description thereof is omitted, and the operation at the time of creating a reply mail will be described in detail here.

In response to a predetermined instruction operation requesting creation of a reply mail being performed in the key unit 14 in a state where the received mail is selected, the control unit 19 performs a reply mail creation process as shown in FIG. To start.

In this reply mail creation processing, the control unit 1
9 first extracts sender information of the selected received mail (step ST1), and a mail address (hereinafter, referred to as a sender address) included in the sender information is registered in the address book storage area 18a. It is confirmed whether or not there is (step ST2).

If the sender address has been registered in the address book storage area 18a, the control unit 19 subsequently stores the registration additional information in the address book storage area 18a in association with the sender address. It is confirmed whether or not there is (step ST3). Then, if the registration additional information is stored, the control unit 19 determines the addition of the registration additional information to the sender address as transmission destination information (step ST4).

Specifically, if the sender information is “hanako @ batu-
denki.co.jp <Hanako Suzuki>'', `` hanako @ batu
The mail address “-denki.co.jp” is stored in the address book storage area 18a, and the registration additional information “[Development Department] Hanako Suzuki” is associated with the mail address “ha
nako@batu-denki.co.jp <[development department] Hanako Suzuki>] is defined as the destination information.

On the other hand, when the sender address is not registered in the address book storage area 18a, or when the registered address is not associated with the registered additional information, the control unit 19 is controlled.
Confirms whether the sender information includes additional information (hereinafter referred to as notification additional information) (step ST
5).

Then, if there is the notification additional information, the control unit 19 checks whether or not the determination condition matching the notification additional information exists in the determination conditions stored in the editing condition storage area 18b ( In step ST6), if there is a matching determination condition, the notification additional information is edited according to the editing condition stored in the editing condition storage area 18b in association with the determination condition (step ST7). Then, in this case, the control unit 19 determines, as transmission destination information, information obtained by adding the edited additional notification information (hereinafter referred to as additional editing information) to the sender address (step ST8).

Specifically, if the sender information is "taro @ maru-sy
ouji.co.jp <Taro Kimura>'', `` taro @ maru-sy
The registered additional information is not stored in the address book storage area 18a in association with the mail address "ouji.co.jp", but includes the determination condition "@ maru-syouji". The notification additional information "<Taro Kimura>" is edited into the additional information "<Taro Kimura>" according to the editing conditions, and "taro@maru-syouji.co.jp <Taro Kimura>" is the destination information. Is defined as

When there is no notification additional information or when there is no determination condition that matches the notification additional information, the control unit 19 determines the sender information extracted in step ST1 as the destination information as it is. (Step ST
9).

As described above, if the destination information is determined in step ST4, step ST8, or step ST9, control unit 19 subsequently creates reply mail data including the destination information (step ST10). . In addition,
The contents of the reply mail data created here may be the same as the reply mail data created by the conventional automatic generation of the return mail data, except that the destination information is determined in step ST4.

After that, the control unit 19 edits the reply mail data in response to an editing instruction by a predetermined instruction operation of the key unit 14 by the user.

When the editing is completed, the control unit 19
The current reply mail creation processing ends.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, when creating a reply mail to an e-mail sent from a partner whose registration additional information is registered in the address book, the registration addition information is added to the transmission destination information of the reply mail. Add information automatically. Therefore, once the user performs the designation input of the registration additional information once to register in the address book, the additional information desired by the user is automatically added to the destination information of the reply mail thereafter, and the reply mail There is no need to input or modify additional information each time a is created, and the burden on the user is greatly reduced. Furthermore, when adding the registration additional information in this way, the notification additional information is not used.
Even if the notification additional information is incorrect, the erroneous information is not returned as it is.

Further, according to the present embodiment, when a reply mail to an e-mail sent from a party whose registration additional information is not registered in the address book and the notification additional information is added to the sender information is created, If the additional information matches the determination condition set in the editing condition storage area 18b, the edited additional information obtained by editing the notification additional information according to the editing condition associated with the matching determination condition is sent to the destination of the reply mail. Automatically append to information. Therefore, simple editing, such as adding a title to the notified additional information, can be automatically performed, eliminating the need for the user to perform such editing work, greatly reducing the burden on the user. Is done.

Further, according to the present embodiment, as described above, the method of adding the registered additional information regardless of the presence or absence and the content of the notification additional information and the method of automatically editing the notification additional information according to the editing conditions are described. There are two methods for generating additional information to be included in the destination information of the reply mail. These two methods depend on whether the registered additional information is registered in the address book storage area 18a. Since they are selectively used, it is possible to arbitrarily use both methods depending on the user's intention.

In the present embodiment, software for realizing the above-described functions is stored in the memory card MC, distributed, and downloaded to the control unit 19, so that this function is provided. It is possible to provide the functions of the present invention to existing mobile telephone terminals that do not have such functions.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment. For example, in the above embodiment, two methods, a method of adding the registered additional information regardless of the presence or absence and the content of the notification additional information, and a method of automatically editing the notification additional information in accordance with the editing conditions are described in the following. And a method for generating additional information to be included in the information. However, only one of them may be provided.

In the above-described embodiment, the above two methods are selectively used depending on whether or not the registration additional information is registered in the address book storage area 18a. It may be possible to store setting information on whether to use, and to store setting information according to the user's designation. Further, it is not necessary that the user be able to use the method properly for each user. For example, any method may be selected as the operation mode of the apparatus.

In the above embodiment, the registered additional information is stored in the address book storage area 18a. However, the registered additional information may be stored separately from the address book information.

In the above-described embodiment, the registration additional information, the judgment condition, and the editing condition are stored in the built-in memory unit 18. However, the additional information may be stored in a separate storage means such as a memory card MC. May be.

Further, in the above embodiment, the memory card MC is exemplified as a storage medium for distributing software for realizing the process related to the creation of the reply mail. However, for example, a memory card MC such as a CD-ROM or a floppy disk is used. Various other storage media can be used.

In the above embodiment, an example is shown in which the electronic mail terminal according to the present invention is applied to a portable telephone terminal. However, the present invention is applied to other wireless communication terminals or wired communication terminals. Of course, the present invention also includes an electronic mail terminal realized by using a general-purpose personal computer as a basic configuration.

In addition, various modifications can be made without departing from the gist of the present invention.

[0068]

According to the present invention, the additional information stored in the storage means by the user is added to the destination address of the reply mail addressed to the mail address associated with the additional information. The additional information added to the source e-mail address of the received e-mail to be replied or automatically edited based on the editing conditions corresponding to the judgment condition that the e-mail address of the reply destination matches. The added additional information is added to the destination address of the reply mail, so that additional information suitable for reply can be automatically added, minimizing the user's operation related to sending the reply mail. , Convenience can be improved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a main configuration of a mobile phone terminal configured by applying an electronic mail terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram schematically showing information stored in an address book storage area 18a in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a diagram schematically showing information stored in an editing condition storage area 18b in FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure at the time of reply mail creation processing by a control unit 19 in FIG. 1;

[Explanation of symbols]

 17 memory card reader / writer 18 memory 18a address book storage area 18b editing condition storage area 19 control section 19a electronic mail processing means 19b additional information adding means 19c additional information editing means 19d processing method selection Means MC… Memory card

Claims (6)

[Claims] An electronic mail can be transmitted and received, and in response to designation of creation of a reply e-mail in response to a received e-mail, a source mail address of the received e-mail is set as a destination address. An e-mail terminal that generates the reply e-mail, when the reply e-mail is generated, when the additional information is stored in a predetermined storage unit in association with a mail address that is a destination address of the reply e-mail. An e-mail terminal comprising an additional information adding means for adding the additional information to the destination address of the reply e-mail as additional information. 2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the transmission and reception of the e-mail can be performed, and the creation of a reply e-mail in response to the received e-mail is specified. An e-mail terminal for generating the reply e-mail, wherein at the time of generation of the reply e-mail, a mail address as a destination address of the reply e-mail satisfies a predetermined determination condition and additional information is added And an additional information editing means for editing the additional information in accordance with an editing condition stored in a predetermined storage means in association with the matched determination condition. 3. An e-mail can be transmitted / received, and in response to an instruction to create a reply e-mail for the received e-mail, a source mail address of the received e-mail is set as a destination address. An e-mail terminal that generates the reply e-mail, when the reply e-mail is generated, when the additional information is stored in a predetermined storage unit in association with a mail address that is a destination address of the reply e-mail. Additional information adding means for adding this additional information to the destination address of the reply e-mail as additional information; and when generating the reply e-mail, a mail address to be the destination address of the reply e-mail is determined by a predetermined determination condition. When the additional information is added and the additional information is added, An additional information editing unit that edits the additional information according to a stored editing condition; and selectively one of the additional information adding unit and the additional information editing unit according to a predetermined selection condition that can be set by a user. An e-mail terminal comprising: a processing method selecting means for causing the e-mail terminal to operate. 4. A process for transmitting and receiving an e-mail, and in response to an instruction to create a reply e-mail for the received e-mail, the source e-mail address of the received e-mail is set as a destination address. A process of generating a reply e-mail; and, when the reply e-mail is generated, when the additional information is stored in predetermined storage means in association with a mail address as a destination address of the reply e-mail. A storage medium storing software for causing a computer to perform processing as additional information adding means for adding information as additional information to a destination address of the reply e-mail. 5. A process for transmitting and receiving an e-mail, and in response to an instruction to create a reply e-mail for the received e-mail, the source e-mail address of the received e-mail is set as a destination address. A process of generating a reply e-mail, when the reply e-mail is generated, when a mail address as a destination address of the reply e-mail meets a predetermined determination condition, and additional information is added, A storage medium storing software that causes a computer to perform processing as an additional information editing unit that edits the additional information according to an editing condition stored in a predetermined storage unit in association with a matching determination condition. 6. A process for transmitting and receiving an e-mail, and in response to a designation of creating a reply e-mail for the received e-mail, the mail address of the source of the received e-mail is set as the destination address. A process of generating a reply e-mail; and, when the reply e-mail is generated, when the additional information is stored in predetermined storage means in association with a mail address as a destination address of the reply e-mail. A process as additional information adding means for adding information as additional information to a destination address of the reply e-mail; and, when the reply e-mail is generated, a mail address as a destination address of the reply e-mail is determined by a predetermined determination condition. And the additional information is added, the information is stored in a predetermined storage means in association with the matched determination condition. Processing as additional information editing means for editing the additional information according to the editing conditions, and selecting one of the additional information adding means and the additional information editing means according to a predetermined selection condition which can be set by a user. A storage medium that stores software for causing a computer to perform processing as a processing method selection unit that operates in a dynamic manner.