Portable telephone

• US 20020019249A1
• Filed: 08/07/2001
• Published: 02/14/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 08/10/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kyocera Corporation
• Original Assignee: Sanyo Electric Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Otsuka, Shuji, Ugari, Takenori, Kawasaki, Hideji, Kashu, Hiroomi
• Granted Patent: US 6,915,143 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/566
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/0251 using monitoring of local events, e.g. events related to user activity
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/027 by controlling a display operation or backlight unit
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 in wireless communication networks

Abstract

A portable telephone of the present invention comprises a casing, a LCD 18 and a key input device 20 disposed on a surface of the casing. The casing has a microphone 17 for delivering speech, a speaker 16 for receiving speech, a backlight 19 for lighting a screen of the LCD 18, a key light device 21 for lighting a manipulation surface of the key input device 20, and a control circuit 15 incorporated therein. The control circuit 15 checks whether a speech delivery signal input from the microphone 17 is a voice signal. If the speech delivery signal is a voice signal, display operation of the LCD 18 is set to OFF and both the backlight 19 and the key light device 21 are turned off. If the signal is not a voice signal, display operation of the LCD 18 is set to ON. Consequently, useless power consumption is reduced.

Claims

1. A portable telephone having a portable casing which is provided with a microphone for speech delivery, a speaker for speech receiving, a display for showing information, and a control circuit for controlling display operation, the control circuit comprising:

checking means for checking whether a speech delivery signal input from the microphone and/or a speech receiving signal fed to the speaker are voice signals, and

display on/off control means for setting display operation of the display to OFF when the signal is found to be a voice signal, while setting display operation of the display to ON when the signal is not found to be a voice signal.

2. A portable telephone according to claim 1 wherein the checking means of the control circuit checks whether the speech delivery signal and/or the speech receiving signal are voice signals based on a sound pressure value or a waveform amplitude value of the speech delivery signal and/or the speech receiving signal.

3. A portable telephone according to claim 2 wherein the checking means of the control circuit comprises:

storing means for storing a reference value of a sound pressure value or a waveform amplitude value of the voice signal used for checking whether the speech delivery signal input from the microphone and/or the speech receiving signal fed to the speaker are voice signals,

detecting means for detecting the sound pressure value or the waveform amplitude value of the speech delivery signal input from the microphone and/or the speech receiving signal to be fed to the speaker, and

signal checking means for checking whether the speech delivery signal and/or the speech receiving signal are voice signals by comparing the reference value stored in the storing means with the sound pressure value or the waveform amplitude value detected according to the detecting means.

4. A portable telephone according to claim 3 wherein when the sound pressure value or the waveform amplitude value detected by the detecting means is continuously or intermittently greater than the reference value described for a longer period of time than a specified period of time, the signal checking means of the checking means checks whether the speech delivery signal and/or the speech receiving signal are voice signals.

5. A portable telephone according to claim 1 wherein the checking means of the control circuit comprises:

signal analysis means for performing frequency analysis of the speech delivery signal input from the microphone and/or the speech receiving signal to be fed to the speaker, and

signal checking means for checking whether the speech delivery signal and/or the speech receiving signal are voice signals based on the resulted analysis according to the signal analysis means.

6. A portable telephone according to claim 1 wherein the portable telephone comprises an information input device having a manipulation surface disposed on a surface of the casing, and display on/off control means of the control circuit sets display operation of the display to ON when the user conducts some manipulation to the information input device.

7. A portable telephone according to claim 1 wherein the portable telephone comprises an information input device having a manipulation surface disposed on a surface of the casing and a light device for lighting a screen of the display and/or a manipulation surface of the information input device, and the control circuit comprises

light control means for turning off the light device when the speech delivery signal input from the microphone and/or the speech receiving signal to be fed to the speaker are found to be voice signals.