METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING ENHANCED ADDRESS BOOK WITH AUTOMATIC CONTACT MANAGEMENT

• US 20120004015A1
• Filed: 10/21/2009
• Published: 01/05/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/29/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: LG Electronics, Inc. (LG Corporation)
• Original Assignee: LG Electronics, Inc. (LG Corporation)
• Inventors: Le Thierry D'Ennequin, Christophe
• Granted Patent: US 8,750,851 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/566
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/2757 by data transmission, e.g. downloading
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72457 according to geographic location
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/50 Service provisioning or reconfiguring

Abstract

A method and apparatus for providing an enhanced address book with an automatic management of contact entries stored therein. According to an embodiment, the invention provides a mobile terminal including a mobile terminal address book; and a controller configured to automatically receive at least one contact entry from a remote device when a predetermined event occurs, to update the mobile terminal address book based on the received at least one contact entry, and to synchronize the updated mobile terminal address book with a network address book through a network.

Claims

1. A mobile terminal comprising:

a display unit;

a mobile terminal address book; and

a controller configured to automatically receive at least one contact entry from a remote device when a predetermined event occurs, to update the mobile terminal address book based on the received at least one contact entry, to synchronize the updated mobile terminal address book with a network address book through a network and to control the display unit to display one or more contact entries stored in the mobile terminal address book according to context information associated with each contact entry,

wherein the context information includes location information, and the display unit displays one or more contact entries having the location information that matches current location information of the mobile terminal.

2. The mobile terminal of claim 1, wherein each of the at least one contact entry stored in the mobile terminal address book includes information related to the remote device.

3. The mobile terminal of claim 1, wherein each of the at least one contact entry stored in the mobile terminal address book includes context information indicating a context in which the corresponding contact entry is to be used.

6. The mobile terminal of claim 1, wherein the controller automatically removes a contact entry from the mobile terminal address book according to lifetime information associated with each contact entry.

7. The mobile terminal of claim 1, further comprising:

wherein the controller controls the display unit to display the automatically received at least one contact entry differently than contact entries that are manually added to the mobile terminal address book.

4-5. -5. (canceled)

8. A method of controlling a mobile terminal address book provided in a mobile terminal, the method comprising:

automatically receiving, by the mobile terminal, at least one contact entry from a remote device when a predetermined event occurs;

updating the mobile terminal address book based on the received at least one contact entry;

synchronizing the updated mobile terminal address book with a network address book through a network; and

displaying, on a display unit of the mobile terminal, one or more contact entries stored in the mobile terminal address book according to context information associated with each contact entry,

wherein the context information includes location information such that one or more contact entries having the location information that matches current location information of the mobile terminal are displayed.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein each of the at least one contact entry stored in the mobile terminal address book includes information related to the remote device.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein each of the at least one contact entry stored in the mobile terminal address book includes context information indicating a context in which the corresponding contact entry is to be used.

13. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

automatically removing a contact entry from the mobile terminal address book according to lifetime information associated with each contact entry.

14. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

displaying, on the display unit of the mobile terminal, the automatically received at least one contact entry differently than contact entries that are manually added to the mobile terminal address book.

11-12. -12. (canceled)

15. A mobile terminal comprising:

a mobile terminal address book;

a synchronization unit configured to synchronize the mobile terminal address book with a network address book through a network, the synchronized mobile terminal address book including at least one contact entry having at least one location information; and

a controller configured to compare cell identification information of the mobile terminal with the at least one location information, and to update the mobile terminal address book to output at least one contact entry corresponding to a location associated with the cell identification information based on the comparison result.