WO2004110039A1

WO2004110039A1 - Automatic display of received messages in a communication terminal

Info

Publication number: WO2004110039A1
Application number: PCT/EP2004/005945
Authority: WO
Inventors: Uli Klink
Original assignee: Giesecke & Devrient Gmbh
Priority date: 2003-06-04
Filing date: 2004-06-02
Publication date: 2004-12-16
Also published as: DE10325242A1

Abstract

The invention relates to a method and a communication terminal (MS) for the unsolicited extraction and display of graphically representable data from a message received by the communication terminal when the sender address of the received message is stored in an address file in the communication terminal.

Description

AUTOMATIC DISPLAY OF RECEIVED MESSAGES IN A COMMUNICATION TERMINAL

The invention relates to a method and a communication terminal for processing messages received by telecommunications.

A communication terminal is referred to in mobile radio systems as a mobile station (MS), which consists of the physically and logically separate parts mobile unit (ME) and subscriber identity module (SIM). The mobile unit is the radio and encryption part of the mobile station, and SIM is a special name for a chip card specific in a mobile radio system.

So far, the SIM card has mainly been used as a medium for identification

15 of the user seen in the mobile radio system, as well as for storing user-specific data. However, the SIM card can be expanded with a variety of additional services, such as sending short messages, what is known as the Short Message Service (SMS, European standard) or Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD, US standard)

20 is drawn. Furthermore, additional applications can be accommodated on the SIM card. For such extensions, it is necessary to implement software called SIM Application Toolkit (SAT) on the SIM card, which means that any application can be implemented on the SIM card within the framework of the SAT specifications. The SAT

25 manages with a few commands, which are stored in the SIM card memory and with which the control of the mobile unit is possible. Using the SAT, for example, it is possible to control the display, query the keyboard and send and receive short messages.

30 Other additional services that can be implemented depending on the technical possibilities of the network infrastructure and the mobile station include, for example, information service, chat service or the like. In order to make menu-driven additional services accessible to the user via the mobile station, the menu structure of the mobile station usually has to be expanded or adapted on the part of the network operator and / or the manufacturer, in which case the SAT is required to carry out these services and to control the mobile unit becomes.

Due to the increasing complexity and the ever more extensive functionality of current mobile stations, operation is becoming more complicated and complex. In order to call up received short messages, for example, the reception of which is usually indicated to the user by the appearance of a corresponding symbol, the user must, among other things, master the menu filling of the mobile station, since a large number of menu steps are necessary to call up and process the received messages ,

The object of the invention is to simplify the processing of a message received in a communication terminal.

According to the invention, this is achieved by a method and a communication terminal with the features of the independent claims. Advantageous embodiments and refinements of the invention are specified in the dependent claims.

By means of the method according to the invention and the communication terminal according to the invention, graphically representable data are extracted from a received message without being requested and displayed when the sender address of the received message is stored in a telephone list file of the communication terminal. As a result, the user is shown the data that the sender should send him with the message on the display of his device, without having to go through the menu. This simplifies the processing of received messages for the user of a communication terminal.

An address or telephone list file is a common standard in communication terminals. There the user can create an address or telephone base from which he only needs to select the desired address for a message when he sends the message to a recipient. This type of address / telephone list file is therefore referred to below as the recipient address file. However, it is not always desirable that every received message from a sender known in the recipient address file is displayed without being requested. For example, it may be desirable not to send such special treatment to messages from certain senders who are considered unimportant, or messages from confidential sources, such as bank information.

In a special embodiment of the invention, it is therefore provided to provide a sender address file in addition to the recipient address file, in which the user or other authorized instances stores selected sender addresses, for example by copying or moving them from the recipient address file, or creates them completely new. As a result, only each received message from a sender known in the sender address file is displayed without being asked. An alternative embodiment provides that the sender addresses selected by the user are only marked as "special" within the recipient address file and thus only each received message of a sender address marked as "special" is displayed without being asked.

A further embodiment of the invention provides that only those messages which are marked by the sender as of high importance or in a similar manner are displayed without being requested, in particular if the associated sender address is specially marked in the recipient address file of the user's terminal or is listed in a special sender address file.

As standard, a communication terminal is equipped with a general collective memory in order to store messages received therein. In a further embodiment of the invention, the terminal can additionally be equipped with a special selection memory in order to store therein messages which have been received from addresses stored in the sender address file or particularly marked in the recipient address file. When storing the message, the user can preferably decide whether the message is stored in the collective memory or in the selection memory, or whether it is not saved at all.

The invention is explained below by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings. In it show:

Fig. 1 shows schematically the structure of a communication terminal, in particular a mobile station (MS), Fig. 2 shows the structure of a normal SMS, Fig. 3 shows the structure of a data SMS and Fig. 4 shows the processing flow of a received SMS from special sender addresses.

1 schematically shows the structure of a mobile communication terminal, which is referred to below as a mobile station (MS). The mobile station consists of the physically and logically separate parts mobile unit (ME) and subscriber identity module (SIM). For example, short messages (SMS) can be received by means of a receiver located in the mobile unit. The mobile unit also has a display to graphically represent data received with the message.

The SIM card is a chip card with a standardized format that is necessary in mobile radio systems and is designed for use in all communication terminals that support the respective standard of the SIM card (eg in Europe GSM). There is a microcontroller on a SIM card, which consists of the elements Central Processing Unit (CPU), an address and data bus and various memories (for example RAM, ROM, EEPROM). The different memories differ in volatile and non-volatile memories, with non-volatile memories having the advantage of not losing the data if there is no power supply. The specific division into different types of memory depends on the respective application area of the SIM card. The various memories are used to store program code and data. The microcontroller enables the realization and control of different applications and services, such as news services. The SIM card also has contact points to be connected to the mobile unit. A SIM card and thus the mobile unit is used by the respective network provider. authenticated and set up with basic services such as automatic network selection.

2 and 3 schematically show two special types of messaging services that could be sent from a host to the terminal. This is a so-called data SMS (FIG. 3), which essentially only contains commands for the SIM card, and an SMS, hereinafter referred to as normal SMS (FIG. 2), which is variable in a variable information block Contain information for the user of a communication terminal in the form of graphically representable data, in particular text. Furthermore, a news service intended for the user is known which can contain multimedia data such as photos and videos. This messaging service is known as the Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) and, like a normal SMS, contains data that can be displayed graphically. For the sake of simplicity, the term “SMS” is used as a collective term for MMS and similar message services with graphically representable data intended for the user. The pure data SMS falls out of this collective term.

Each type of SMS consists of a standard information block, which is referred to as an SMS header and which, in addition to the sender address and information about the format of the data sent with the SMS, also contains a field Protocol Identifier (PID). Using the PID, the mobile unit can recognize whether it is a normal SMS (Fig. 2) or a data SMS (Fig. 3). If a normal SMS is received, the mobile unit causes this SMS to be stored in a general storage area provided for this purpose in the SIM card, possibly also in a storage area of the mobile unit (ME) provided for this purpose. There is then a signaling of the Reception by means of acoustic and / or optical signals on the display of the mobile unit.

A data SMS (FIG. 3) additionally has a data header, the field Toolkit Application Reference (TAR) being part of this header. The TAR indicates by a predetermined value which application is to be executed in the SIM card. A data SMS is forwarded to the SIM card with a command that differs from the normal SMS. The portion of the data SMS that is not part of the header contains a command list that can be processed using applications on the SIM card.

4 shows an exemplary embodiment for processing received SMS. After receiving an SMS, the mobile unit (ME) recognizes whether it is a data SMS or an SMS with graphically representable data tuned for the recipient, for example a normal SMS or an MMS. A pure data SMS is only forwarded to the SIM card for processing its content, since it contains no information for the user. If an SMS is received that contains graphically representable data, the sender address is compared with an address file stored in the mobile station (MS), this memory advantageously being a non-volatile memory. If the sender address is contained in the address file, means for extracting and displaying the mobile station are controlled by the microcontroller of the SIM card in such a way that the graphically represented data is extracted and displayed without being requested.

If the sender address of the received SMS is not stored in the address file, the mobile unit immediately saves the received message in a collective memory for received messages on the SIM card. The reception is then signaled by means of acoustic and / or optical signals on the display of the mobile unit.

According to one embodiment of this exemplary embodiment, a user of the mobile station is given a special option for storing the data that is displayed without being requested. If the user specifies the command to save the data, the messages received from the stored sender address are stored at the request of the user in a special selection memory which is different from the general collective memory or forms a special area of the collective memory. However, the message can also be stored in the general collective memory if the user no longer wishes to treat the message as preferred. Otherwise the message will be deleted.

The user of the mobile station (MS) can manage the address file which contains the stored sender addresses. To operate the administration device of the mobile station, the menu structure of the mobile station is adapted by the network operator or the manufacturer. The user can add sender addresses to the address file or delete saved sender addresses, which can be done individually, in groups, or as a whole.

In a special embodiment, the address file comprises a recipient and a sender address file. The user creates an address master in the recipient address file. From this file, the user can copy or move selected addresses to the sender address file. An alternative embodiment provides that the selected subscriptions whose addresses are only marked as "special" sender addresses within the recipient address file. The unsolicited extraction and display of the relevant data then only takes place for sender addresses which are specially marked in the recipient address file or are stored in the sender address file.

Alternatively or additionally, sender addresses can be specified in the address file, in particular in the sender address file, by the network operator and identified from the outset as "special". These addresses may not be able to be deleted by the user of the mobile station. For example, important information from the police, traffic news and information from the network provider could thus be displayed on the display of the mobile station without being requested.

According to a further embodiment, the sender can mark his message to be sent in a special way, the receiving communication terminal being designed to recognize such markings. Such a marking is useful if the sender considers the message to be particularly important or in a hurry. The communication terminal is then controlled in such a way that only the data of messages with such a marking are extracted and displayed without being requested. This function can be applied to all received messages or only to messages received from "special" sender addresses. The user can preferably decide via a special menu item in the mobile station whether the function is applied to all messages or only to special messages.

The application described above is not only suitable for the processing of SMS in mobile telecommunication terminals, but also for communication All types of communication terminals, in particular also for PCs and other electronic communication terminals, which are set up to receive messages with graphically representable data intended for viewing by the recipient. Although the invention is essentially aimed at the processing of SMS and similar message services, it is also suitable for processing emails and other types of messages which contain graphically representable information for the recipient.

Claims

Patent claims

1. A method for processing a message received in a communication terminal, which comprises a standard information block which contains at least the sender address as standard information and a variable information block which contains variable information in the form of graphically representable data, the method comprising the following steps:

- receiving a message,

Extracting the graphically representable data from the received message and

- Displaying the graphically representable data on a display,

characterized in that the steps of extracting and displaying are carried out without being asked if the sender address of the received message is stored in an address file of the communication terminal.

2. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that the address file contains a recipient address file and a sender address file, the steps of the unsolicited extraction and display being carried out only if the sender address is stored in the sender address file.

3. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that the steps of the unsolicited extraction and display are only carried out if the sender address is specially marked in the address file.

4. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that the steps of the unsolicited extraction and display are only carried out if the message is specially marked by the sender.

5. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that both a general collective memory and a special selection memory are provided for storing messages, comprising the further step of storing the message in the special selection memory.

6. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that both a general collective memory and a special selection memory are provided for storing messages, comprising the further step:

Selection by a user whether the message should be stored or deleted in the general collective memory or in the special selection memory and

- Saving the message in the general collective memory or in the special selection memory or deleting the message, depending on the selection by the user.

7. A communication terminal having an address file in which addresses are stored, comprising:

Means for receiving a message, each consisting of a standard information block, which contains at least the sender address as standard information, and a variable information block, which contains variable information in the form of graphically representable data,

- Means for extracting the graphically representable data from the received message and

a display to show the extracted data,

characterized by a control device which controls the extracting means and the display in such a way that the graphically representable data are extracted and displayed without being requested when the sender address of the received message is stored in an address file of the communication terminal.

8. Communication terminal according to claim 7, characterized in that the address file comprises a recipient address file and a sender address file, the control device controlling the means for extracting and displaying such that the data is extracted and displayed only when not in demand Sender address of the received message is stored in the sender address file of the communication terminal.

9. Communication terminal according to claim 7, characterized in that the control device controls the means for extracting and displaying such that the data are extracted and displayed only when not requested when the sender address is particularly marked in the address file.

10. Communication terminal according to one of claims 7 to 9, characterized in that the control device controls the means for extracting and displaying such that the data is extracted and displayed only when not requested when the message is specially marked by the sender.

11. Communication terminal according to one of claims 7 to 10, characterized by a general collective memory and a special selection memory for storing messages.

12. Communication terminal according to claim 11, characterized by a selection device for selectively storing the unsolicited message either in the collective memory or the special selection memory or for deleting the message.