WO2006042042A1

WO2006042042A1 - Silent accept for incoming telephone calls

Info

Publication number: WO2006042042A1
Application number: PCT/US2005/036040
Authority: WO
Inventors: Deng Xiang Zhou; Jian Bing Li
Original assignee: Motorola Inc.
Priority date: 2004-10-08
Filing date: 2005-10-07
Publication date: 2006-04-20
Also published as: CN1758683A

Abstract

A radio telephone (100) and method (200,300) for responding to an incoming call received by the telephone (100). In response to the incoming call from a calling party the telephone provides for generating (220) an alert and then the telephone receives (240) a text message input at a user interface (106,105). This text message is composed after receipt of the incoming call and the text message is then converted (245) into a corresponding speech message. The speech message is then transmitted (255), after the incoming call is answered, to the calling party.

Description

SILENT ACCEPT FOR INCOMMING TELEPHONE CALLS

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to the field of communications devices such as radio telephones. The invention is particularly useful for, but not necessarily limited to, radiotelephones having silent or vibrating mode alerts for informing a called party of an incoming call.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Telephone devices, including land-line telephones and radiotelephones, typically have a transducer providing an incoming call audible alert that is commonly known as a ringtone. Some portable telephone devices, such as radiotelephones, include substantially non-audio incoming call silent alerts such as flashing lights or vibrators that vibrate the device to provide a silent alert. In these devices, the user can select either the silent alert or the audible alert depending upon the user's needs.

The user of a portable radiotelephone will typically select the silent alert while participating in a meeting or otherwise located in a public place where the audible alert will cause a disturbance. The advantage of the silent alert is that it informs the user of an incoming call without disturbing others. However, if the user answers the incoming call immediately, they will disturb others. Other alternatives available to the user include ignoring the call, which will result in losing the call, or accepting the call immediately and not speaking into the device until moving to a private location. If the user accepts the call, but does not speak almost immediately, the calling party will be confused and they will likely terminate their call attempt (hang-up) and possibly try to call again.

One advantageous solution to the above has been to incorporate an answering circuit into portable radiotelephones. The answering circuit stores a prerecorded message requesting that the caller leave a short reply, and records the reply for later play-back by the user. Although the answering circuit permits recording of the message, the circuit is relatively large and expensive, it generally only provides for generic messages and does not necessarily provide accurate information of the calling party's future availability. Thus the calling party does not know when the called party will call back.

It is also known to have canned messages in which a user can answer a call, select a pre-stored canned message and transmit the message without disturbing people that are in close proximity to the radiotelephone. However, it would be advantageous if a user had more flexibility in answering a call with tailored message that can be created ""on the fly¹¹ by the user to thereby provide a personalized message responses without disturbing people that are in close proximity to the radiotelephone.

In this specification, including the claims, the terms "comprises¹, "comprising' or similar terms are intended to mean a non-exclusive inclusion, such that a method or apparatus that comprises a list of elements does not include those elements solely, but may well include other elements not listed. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

According to one aspect of the invention there is provided a method for responding to an incoming call received by a telephone, the method comprising: generating an alert in response to the incoming call from a calling party, the incoming call being received by a communications unit of the telephone; receiving at least part of a text message input at a user interface of the telephone, the text message being input after the generating; converting the text message into a corresponding speech message; and transmitting, after the incoming call is answered, the corresponding speech message to the calling party.

Suitably, the receiving at least part of a text message input at a user interface is characterised by a user typing the message. The user interface may include a plurality of input keys on which the typing is performed. In one alternative, the user suitably scribes the message on the user interface. Suitably, the user interface can be a touch screen on which the scribing is performed.

Preferably, the generating an alert includes displaying caller identification information of the calling party on a display screen of the telephone.

Suitably, the method is characterised by the call being answered prior to the receiving at least part of a text message. However, the call may be answered concurrently with the receiving at least part of a text message or the call may be answered automatically as soon as the receiving is detected. Preferably, the telephone has at least one microphone for communicating with a communications unit of the telephone that is prevented from communicating with the communications unit during at least the receiving, converting and transmitting.

Suitably, the telephone has at least one speaker for communicating with a communications unit of the telephone that is prevented from communicating with the communications unit during at least the receiving, converting and transmitting.

The telephone has at least one speaker port for coupling to an external speaker to allow for communicating with the communications unit during at least the receiving, converting and transmitting.

In one suitable option, the method includes transmitting a canned voice message to the calling party, the transmitting being effected before the receiving and after the incoming call being answered.

Suitably, converting includes text to speech processing. The speech message is a suitably coded speech waveform.

Preferably, the generating may be characterised by the alert being a silent alert. However the alert may be an audible alert or a vibrating alert.

According to another aspect of the invention there is provided a radiotelephone comprising: a user interface; an alert; a communications unit; a lexicon; an utterance corpus; and a processor coupled to the user interface, alert communications unit, lexicon and utterance corpus, wherein in response to an incoming call said processor controls the alert to provide an alert signal and controls the communications unit to accept the incoming call, and the controller further provides for receiving at least part of a text message input at a user interface after the communications unit accepts the incoming call, the text message being converted into a corresponding speech message with the assistance of the corpus and lexicon and thereafter transmitted by the communications unit.

Suitably, the radiotelephone may have one or more of the characteristics or perform one or more of the functions or features as recited above in the method for responding to an incoming call.

BRIEFDESCRIPTIONOFTHEDRAWINGS

In order that the invention may be readily understood and put into practical effect, reference will now be made to exemplary embodiments as illustrated with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

Fig. 1 is a block diagram illustrating circuitry of a radio telephone in accordance with the invention;

Fig. 2 is a flow diagram illustrating one embodiment of a method for responding to an incoming call received by the device of Fig 1; and

Fig. 3 is a flow diagram illustrating another embodiment of a method for responding to an incoming call received by the device of Fig 1. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENTS OF THE

INVENTION

In the drawings, like numerals on different Figs are used to indicate like elements throughout . With reference to Fig. 1, there is illustrated a communications device in the form of a radio telephone 100 comprising a radio frequency communications unit 102 (transmitter) coupled to be in communication with a processor 103. The radio telephone 100 also has input keys 106 and a display screen 105 coupled to be in communication with the processor 103. As will be apparent to a person skilled in the art, screen 105 may be a touch screen thereby making the input keys 106 optional or at least significantly reducing the number of mechanical keys on the telephone 100.

The processor 103 includes an encoder/decoder 111 with an associated Code Read Only Memory (ROM) 112 storing data for encoding and decoding voice or other signals that may be transmitted or received by the radio telephone 100. The processor 103 also includes a micro-processor 113 coupled, by a common data and address bus 117, to the encoder/decoder 111, a character Read Only Memory (ROM) 114, a Random Access Memory (RAM) 104, static memory 116 and a SIM interface 118. The static programmable memory 116 and a SIM (often called a SIM card) operatively coupled to the SIM interface 118 each can store, amongst other things, selected incoming text messages and a Telephone Number Database TND (phonebook) comprising a number field for telephone numbers and name field for identifiers associated with one the numbers in the name field. For instance, one entry in the Telephone Number Database TND may be 91999111111 (entered in the number field) with an associated identifier ^{^}Steven C at work'¹ in the name field. The SIM card and static memory 116 may also store passwords for allowing accessibility to password protected functions on the radio telephone 100.

The micro-processor 113 has ports for coupling to the input keys 106, screen 105 and an alert 115 that typically contains an alert speaker, a vibrator motor and associated drivers. Also, micro-processor 113 has ports for coupling to a lexicon 160, an utterance corpus 170, a microphone 135, a communications speaker 140, an external speaker and microphone port 175 for coupling to both or either an external speaker and microphone. The external speaker and microphone port 175 is used for what is often called hands free use in which the external speaker and microphone typically form a headset .

The lexicon 160 and utterance corpus 170 provide for Text-To-Speech (TTS) conversion. The lexicon 160 stores text strings and their corresponding phonetic identifiers (identifying one or more words or phonemes) , whereas the utterance corpus 170 includes representations of sampled, digitized and processed utterance waveforms corresponding to phonetic identifiers. The character Read only memory 114 stores code for decoding or encoding text messages that may be received by the communication unit 102. In this embodiment the character Read Only Memory 114 also stores operating code (OC) for micro-processor 113 and code for performing functions associated with the radio telephone 100.

The radio frequency communications unit 102 is a combined receiver and transmitter having a common antenna 107. The communications unit 102 has a transceiver 108 coupled to antenna 107 via a radio frequency amplifier 109. The transceiver 108 is also coupled to a combined modulator/demodulator 110 that couples the communications unit 102 to the processor 103. Referring to Fig 2 there is illustrated one embodiment of a method 200 for responding to an incoming call received by the radio telephone 100, the method 200 is performed by the processor 103 and associated modules comprising the radio telephone 100. In operation, the processor 103 detects an incoming call in decision block 205 to initiate an interrupt subroutine that essentially comprises the method 200.

The processor 103 controls the alert 115 to provide for generating an alert in response to the incoming call from a calling party, the incoming call being received by a communications unit of the radio telephone 100 as indicated in block 220. Prior to the method 200 being invoked by an interrupt, the type of alert can be pre-selected by the user, the user being the operator of the portable device who is the called party. Hence, the alert may be selected by the user to be silent alert, an audible alert or a vibrating alert. The processor 103 also controls the display screen 105 to display the caller's identification (ID) , if it is available. Accordingly, in block 220 the generating an alert includes displaying caller identification information of the calling party (if available) on a display screen 105 of the telephone 100.

The processor 103 then waits for the user to actuate a silent answer mode, as indicated in decision block 225. The silent answer mode can be actuated by a user actuating a designated key forming one of the input keys 106, or if the screen 105 is a touch screen then by actuating a virtual key displayed on screen 105. However, if the radio telephone 100 is a foldable device comprising a two-part housing movable from a closed to an opened position, then the telephone 100 may be pr-programmed by the user to determine that silent answer mode is selected when the device is opened. If the user does not actuate the silent answer mode, but answers the call conventionally by any known means including actuating an answer key forming one of the input keys 106, as detected at decision block 230, the processor 103 proceeds to process the call, as indicated in block 235, and the method 200 or subroutine ends.

It is envisioned that the answer call decision block 408 can be omitted, as the processor can have an answer call subroutine (not shown) that ends the method 300 at any time upon the user placing the telephone 100 in an active call state (a conventional call) . It will be apparent to a person skilled in the art that the method 100 can be terminated by the user rejecting the incoming call by suitable actuation of one of the input keys 106.

When in the active call state the microphone 120 and speaker 122 are in full communication with the communications unit 102, such that sounds detected by the microphone 135 are transmitted to the communications unit 102 and incoming audio signals received by the communications device are output by the speaker 140. Accepting the call into an active communication state will thus interrupt the method 200 at any point. The user accepts the call into an active call state upon generating a signal to processor 103 by typically actuating a control key on the input keys 106 or by actuating a virtual key on touch screen 105.

Responsive to actuation of silent answer mode, block 240 provides for receiving text or at least part of a text message input at a user interface UI of the telephone 100. As illustrated the text message is input after the telephone 100 has generated the alert and after the caller identification (if available) is displayed on the display screen 105. Hence, the user can customise at the spare of the moment and in response to the caller identification a suitable text message. This message can be composed ""on the fly¹¹ by the user to thereby provide a personalized message. This personalized message that can include information regarding the user's (called party's) current availability and when the user will be able to return the calling party's call. The message can be composed on any suitable user interface UI provided by the telephone 100 such as the input keys 106 or if the screen 105 is a touch screen 105 user interface UI then the message can be typed on a virtual keypad on screen 105 or it can be scribed on screen 105 using known handwriting recognition techniques. It will be apparent that the processor 103 may determine when a message or part thereof has been input by analysing sentence structure or alternatively the user can actuate an enter key on the screen 105 or on the input keys 106.

At block 245 the processor 103 provides for converting the text message into a corresponding speech message. The converting includes text to speech processing in which the text, or sections of the text, is matched with stored text in the lexicon 160 to select phonetic identifiers for phonetic symbols or acoustic elements that are associated with the text matched in the lexicon 160. The processor 103 then uses the selected phonetic identifiers to select coded data representing speech signals of that are stored in the utterance corpus 170. As will be apparent to a person skilled in the art the speech message is a coded speech waveform that is created by concatenated text-to- speech processing that is known in the art and is described for instance in T. DUTOIT, An Introduction to Text-To- Speech Synthesis, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996, that is included herein by reference.

At a block 250 the telephone 100 provides for transmitting, after the incoming call is answered, the corresponding speech message to the calling party. As will be apparent to a person skilled in the art, the method is the call can be answered prior to the receiving the text message at block 240. In an alternative approach, the incoming call may be answered concurrently with the receiving at least part of a text message.

At a block 255, the telephone 100 displays on the display screen 105 an informing message to the user, the informing message essentially advises the user that the speech message has been transmitted to the calling party. Next, at a call terminated decision block 260, the processor 103 determines if the call has been terminated and if terminated the method 200 ends. It is envisaged that the call terminated decision block 260 can be omitted, as the processor 103 can end the method 200 at any time upon the user (or calling party) terminating the call.

If the method 200 is not terminated then at an allowing for receiving caller messages of block 265, the calling party can send voice messages to the telephone 100. When in silent answer mode (blocks 240 to 265) the microphone 135 that is conventionally operatively coupled to be communicating with a communications unit 102 is prevented from communicating with the communications unit 102 during the receiving, converting and transmitting of respective blocks 240, 245 and 250. Similarly, when in silent answer mode (blocks 240 to 265) the speaker 140 that is conventionally operatively coupled to be communicating with a communications unit 102 is prevented from communicating with the communications unit 102 during the receiving, converting and transmitting of respective blocks 240, 245 and 250. However, if the user has operatively coupled a headset to the external speaker and microphone port 175, then the user can listen to the calling party via. the earphone or earphones of the headset since the port 175 is operatively coupled to the communications unit 102 and allows communications to unit 102 during the receiving, converting and transmitting of respective blocks 240, 245 and 250.

When using the headset the user can listen to the calling party and respond silently, without disturbing others, by entering text at block 240. It should be noted that once the call is answered in silent mode the user (called party) of the telephone 100 can listen to the caller's voice (messages) at any time and not just at block 265.

Referring to Fig 3 there is illustrated another embodiment of a method 300 for responding to an incoming call received by the radio telephone 100, the method 300 again is performed by the processor 103 and associated modules comprising the radio telephone 100. In operation, the processor 103 detects an incoming call and checks to determine if silent answer mode is set in decision block 310 to thereby initiate an interrupt subroutine that essentially comprises the method 200.

If decision block 320 detects an incoming call and the user has pre-set the telephone 100 to operate in silent answer mode the processor 103 controls the alert 115 to provide for generating an alert in response to the incoming call from a calling party. The incoming call being received by a communications unit of the radio telephone 100 as indicated in block 320 and prior to the method 300 being invoked by an interrupt, the type of alert can be pre-selected by the user. Hence, as before the alert may be selected by the user to be silent alert, an audible alert or a vibrating alert. Again, the processor 103 also controls the display screen 105 to display the caller's identification (ID) , if it is available and in block 320 the generating an alert includes displaying caller identification information of the calling party (if available) on a display screen 105 of the telephone 100. If the caller's name or number are known, the caller's name or number is displayed on screen 105. The processor 103 thus optionally controls the screen 105 to generate a message such as " [caller] is holding", in block 320. If the caller is not known, a default message such as "unknown caller" is displayed. However, any suitable message may be used. It will be recognized that if the telephone did not have a screen 105, the caller ID message will not be available to the user.

The processor 103 then waits for a pre-determined wait time (WT) and then provides for answering the call automatically and transmitting a canned message at block 330. The wait time (WT) can be a default time (e.g. three rings of a ringtone or five seconds etc) or the wait (WT) time can be pre-selected by the user. One possibility is that the call may be answered automatically as soon as the receiving is detected at block 305 or concurrently with block 320. In this regard, the generating of the alert would continue for a short period (either a default period or a user pre-selected period) .

The canned message can be pre-selected or pre-recorded by the user, for example, the message may: inform the caller that they are ^{^}"on hold and the call will be answered shortly'¹; may inform the caller that ^{v^}the called party can not answer soon, but the caller can leave a message'¹ that can be stored in the static memory 116; may inform the caller that ^{^"}~the called party is unavailable¹¹ ; may inform the caller that they have an ^{^}option to forward the call to another number or to forward the call to a network voice mail service¹' . However, the canned message can be any canned message that the user wished to store in the static memory 116. It should also be noted that the transmitting of the canned message may be optional and the user can pre-program the telephone 100 to omit the transmitting of the canned message. It is envisaged that the processor 103 can have an answer call subroutine (not shown) that ends the method 300 at any time upon the user placing the telephone 100 in an active call state (a conventional call) . It will be apparent to a person skilled in the art that the method 300 can be terminated by the user rejecting the incoming call by suitable actuation of one of the input keys 106.

After block 330 the method proceeds to block 340 that provides for receiving text or at least part of a text message input at a user interface UI of the telephone 100. As illustrated the text message is input after the telephone 100 has generated the alert and after the caller identification (if available) is displayed on the display screen 105. Hence, the user can customise at the spare of the moment and in response to the caller identification a suitable text message. This message can be composed ^sson the fly¹' by the user to thereby provide a personalized message that can compliment the canned message. This personalized message that can include information regarding the user's (called party's) current availability and when the user will be able to return the calling party's call. As before, the message can be composed on the input keys 106 or if the screen 105 is a touch screen 105 user interface UI then the message can be typed on a virtual keypad on screen 105 or it can be scribed on screen 105 using known handwriting recognition techniques. It will be apparent that the processor 103 may determine when a message or part thereof has been input by analysing sentence structure or alternatively the user can actuate an enter key on the screen 105 or on the input keys 106.

At block 345 the processor 103 provides for converting the text message into a corresponding speech message. The converting includes text to speech processing in which the text, or sections of the text, is matched with stored text in the lexicon 160 to select phonetic identifiers for phonetic symbols or acoustic elements that are associated with the text matched in the lexicon IGO. The processor 103 then uses the selected phonetic identifiers to select coded data representing speech signals of that are stored in the utterance corpus 170.

At a block 350 the telephone 100 provides for transmitting, the corresponding speech message to the calling party. Next, at a block 355, the telephone 100 displays on the display screen 105 an informing message advising the user that the speech message has been transmitted to the calling party. Then, at a call terminated decision block 360, the processor 103 determines if the call has been terminated and if terminated the method 300 ends. It should be noted that the call terminated decision block 360 can be omitted, as the processor 103 can end the method 300 at any time upon the user (or calling party) terminating the call.

If the method 300 is not terminated then at an allowing for receiving caller messages of block 365, the calling party can send voice messages to the telephone 100. Once the call is answered by the method 300, the microphone 135 that is conventionally operatively coupled to be communicating with a communications unit 102 is prevented from communicating with the communications unit 102. Similarly, the speaker 140 that is conventionally operatively coupled to be communicating with a communications unit 102 is prevented from communicating with the communications unit 102. However, if the user has operatively coupled a headset to the external speaker and microphone port 175, then the user can listen to the calling party via. the earphone or earphones of the headset since the port 175 is operatively coupled to the communications unit 102 and allows communications to unit 102. When using the headset the user can listen to the calling party and respond silently, without disturbing others, by entering text at block 340. It should be noted that once the call is answered during the method 300 the user (called party) can listen to the caller's voice (messages) at any time and not just at block 365.

Advantageously, the present invention provides for it allowing a user more flexibility in answering a call with tailored at the spare of the ^{^}on the fly¹¹ messages thereby provide a personalized message responses without disturbing people. The personalized message can compliment canned messages. Hence, for example consider the canned message ""please wait, you are on hold and the call will be answered shortly¹' that is transmitted at block 330, then the user can view the caller ID ""John Smith'¹ and compose a message, for instance, the text message ""sorry John I am in a meeting I will call you back in one hour¹' . This message is then converted to a speech message and transmitted to John Smith¹ telephone. In an alternative, the user may in a public place and may be able to type long messages that are transmitted as speech messages to ""John Smith'¹ and listen to the ""John Smith'¹ via. the earphone or earphones of the headset if the port 175 is operatively coupled to the communications unit 102.

It is also envisaged that the user can make calls 9be the calling party, by inputting text messages in silent mode and then converting and transmitting these messages to a called party. Again, the user can use a headset coupled to port 175 to hear the called party's response to the transmitted converted speech messages.

The detailed description provides exemplary embodiments only, and is not intended to limit the scope, applicability, or configuration of the invention. Rather, the detailed description of the exemplary embodiments provides those skilled in the art with an enabling description for implementing exemplary embodiments of the invention. It should be understood that various changes may be made in the function and arrangement of elements without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims .

Claims

WE CLAIM :

1. A method for responding to an incoming call received by a telephone, the method comprising: generating an alert in response to the incoming call from a calling party, the incoming call being received by a communications unit of the telephone; receiving at least part of a text message input at a user interface of the telephone, the text message being input after the generating; converting the text message into a corresponding speech message; and transmitting, after the incoming call is answered, the corresponding speech message to the calling party.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the receiving at least part of a text message input at a user interface is characterised by a user typing the message.

3. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the user scribes the message on the user interface.

4. A method as claimed in claim 3, wherein the user interface is a touch screen on which the scribing is performed.

5. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the generating an alert includes displaying caller identification information of the calling party on a display screen of the telephone.

6. A method as claimed in claim 1 characterised by the call being answered prior to the receiving at least part of a text message.

7. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the call is answered concurrently with the receiving at least part of a text message.

8. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the call is answered automatically as soon as the receiving is detected.

9. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the telephone has at least one microphone for communicating with a communications unit of the telephone that is prevented from communicating with the communications unit during at least the receiving, converting and transmitting.

10. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the telephone has at least one speaker for communicating with a communications unit of the telephone that is prevented from communicating with the communications unit during at least the receiving, converting and transmitting.

11. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein telephone has at least one speaker port for coupling to an external speaker to allow for communicating with the communications unit during at least the receiving, converting and transmitting.

12. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the method includes transmitting a canned voice message to the calling party, the transmitting being effected before the receiving and after the incoming call being answered.

13. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein converting includes text to speech processing.

14. A method as claimed in claim 13, wherein The speech message is a suitably coded speech waveform.

15. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the generating is characterised by the alert being a silent alert.

16. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the generating is characterised by the alert being a vibrating alert.

17. A radiotelephone comprising: a user interface; an alert; a communications unit; a lexicon; an utterance corpus; and a processor coupled to the user interface, alert communications unit, lexicon and utterance corpus, wherein in response to an incoming call said processor controls the alert to provide an alert signal and controls the communications unit to accept the incoming call, and the controller further provides for receiving at least part of a text message input at a user interface after the communications unit accepts the incoming call, the text message being converted into a corresponding speech message with the assistance of the corpus and lexicon and thereafter transmitted by the communications unit .