Electronic telephone directory

• US 6,804,338 B1
• Filed: 05/04/2000
• Issued: 10/12/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 05/04/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Cybiotronics Limited
• Original Assignee: Cybiotronics Limited
• Inventors: Chen, Lim Boon
• Primary Examiner(s): Kuntz, Curtis
• Assistant Examiner(s): Taylor, Barry W
• Application Number:
  US09/564,912
• Time in Patent Office: 1,622 Days
• Field of Search: 379/142, 379/355.01, 379/355.02, 379/355.06, 379/355.07, 379/215.01, 379/142.01, 379/142.04, 379/142.06, 379/142.08, 455/414.1, 455/415
• US Class Current: 379/142.08
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/2746 Sorting, e.g. according to history or frequency of use
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/27485 Appending a prefix to or inserting a pause into a dialling sequence
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/2749 Automatic dialling or redialling systems, e.g. on off-hook or redial on busy
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/57 Arrangements for indicating or recording the number of the calling subscriber at the called subscriber's set at the operator set in a manual exchange H04M5/20
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/578 associated with a synthesized vocal announcement

Abstract

A method and apparatus for automatic creation of an electronic telephone directory uses intelligent automatic recognition of whether a telephone number is considered by the user as an important one or not. A telephone number is recognized to be an important one when certain user actions or situations relating to this telephone number occur. These include calling back a Caller ID number repeatedly or a certain number of times within a certain time period, receiving the same Caller ID number repeatedly within a certain time period, manually dialing a number that matches one of those in the memories; or, during a Caller ID on Call Waiting, exercising options like dropping the existing call and switching to the new caller, etc. Once a telephone number is determined to be an important one based on these criteria, the number is automatically stored into a permanent memory that is the electronic directory.

Claims

1. An electronic telephone directory automatically created by caller identification data in incoming telephone calls, comprising:

a permanent directory memory configured to store a collection of telephone numbers forming an electronic telephone directory;

a decision unit configured to determine if said caller identification data from an incoming telephone call is to be stored, wherein said determination is based on a response made by a user to the incoming telephone call and said determination is made without any direct user input indicating whether said caller identification data from said incoming telephone call is to be stored; and

a circuit configured to write said caller identification data from said incoming telephone call into said permanent memory if said decision unit determines said data is to be stored;

wherein said incoming telephone call is a call-waiting call made available by a call waiting service and said incoming telephone call comes in while a current telephone call is in progress; and

wherein said response made by said user include switching to a new caller from the call-waiting call, dropping a current caller from the current telephone call, or joining the new caller and the current caller into a conference call.

2. An electronic telephone directory as defined in claim 1 further comprising:

a caller identification memory to store caller identification data from prior incoming telephone calls;

a redialed numbers memory to store recently dialed numbers; and

wherein said decision unit comprises a comparator that determines if said data is to be stored by examining whether said caller identification data from said telephone call matches either any of said caller identification data stored in said caller identification memory, any of said recently dialed numbers stored in said redialed numbers memory, or any of said collection of numbers in said permanent directory memory.

3. An electronic telephone directory as defined in claim 2, wherein:

said comparator and said circuit comprise a microprocessor; and

said caller identification memory, said redialed numbers memory, and said permanent directory memory comprise locations in random access memory connected to said microprocessor.

4. An electronic telephone directory as defined in claim 2, wherein:

said determination done by said comparator relative to said caller identification data stored in said caller identification memory comprises determining whether said caller identification data from an incoming call matches a number from said caller identification memory that has been called back or received for more than a programmable amount of times within a programmable time interval; and

said determination done by said comparator relative to said numbers stored in said redial memory comprises determining whether said number has been repeatedly dialed for more than a programmable amount of times within a programmable time interval.

5. An electronic telephone directory as defined in claim 2, wherein:

said directory also includes telephone numbers from outgoing calls;

said comparator further determines if said telephone number of said outgoing telephone call matches any of said telephone numbers stored in said caller identification memory, or any of said recently dialed numbers stored in said redialed numbers memory; and

said circuit writes said telephone number from said outgoing telephone call into said permanent memory if said comparator determines the existence of a match.

6. An electronic telephone directory as defined in claim 2, wherein said directory further comprises deletion circuitry to automatically delete numbers from said permanent directory when said permanent memory is full, said deleted numbers being those which have not been dialed for more than a certain length of time unless such numbers have been protected against deletion.

7. An electronic telephone directory as defined in claim 2, wherein:

said directory further includes;

a telephone dialer;

an outgoing call number memory configured to store a dialed number that leads to a successful connection;

an area code memory configured to store area codes of dialed numbers; and

an extractor configured to determine if a number in said outgoing call number memory contains an area code by determining if the length of the number is larger than a predetermined value and extract the area code and store the area code into said area code memory if the area code is determined to be present in the number; and

wherein said comparator further determines, for an outgoing call using a number from said caller identification memory, whether the area code of the number for the outgoing call matches one of the area codes stored in said area code memory, and wherein said dialer dials the area code of the number for the outgoing call and a predetermined prefix if a match is found by said comparator and said dialer does not dial the area code of the number for said outgoing call if no match is found by said comparator.

8. An electronic telephone directory as defined in claim 1, wherein:

said directory includes a base unit and a removable unit each containing said caller identification memory, said redialed numbers memory, and said permanent directory memory, and

said directory includes circuitry to synchronize said memories in said base and removable units.

9. An electronic telephone directory as defined in claim 1, wherein said directory further comprises:

means for automatically answering a call after a predetermined number of ringing is detected;

audio generation means for converting said caller identification data or directory data into audible voice, and playing said voice to the telephone of the calling party via the telephone line; and

DTMF tone detector means for detecting user-defined access codes requesting audible playing of caller identification data or directory data, and for also detecting a plurality of DTMF signals that cause different portions of caller identification data or directory data stored in said caller identification memory or directory memory to be played by said audio generation means.

10. A method of automatic creation of an electronic telephone directory from caller identification data in incoming telephone calls, comprising:

providing a caller identification memory to store respective caller identification data from prior incoming telephone calls;

providing permanent directory memory to store a collection of telephone numbers forming an electronic telephone directory;

determining if said respective caller identification data from said incoming telephone calls is to be stored, wherein said determination is based on responses made by respective users to the incoming telephone calls and said determination is made without any direct user input indicating whether said respective caller identification data from said incoming telephone calls is to be stored; and

writing some or all of said respective caller identification data from said incoming telephone calls into said permanent memory based upon said determination;

wherein each of the incoming telephone calls is a call-waiting call made available by a call waiting service and the incoming telephone call comes in while a current telephone call is in progress; and

wherein for each incoming telephone call, the response made by the corresponding user includes switching to a new caller from the incoming telephone call, dropping a current caller from the current telephone call, and joining the new caller and the current caller into a conference call.

11. A method of automatic creation of an electronic telephone directory as defined in claim 10, further comprising:

providing a redialed numbers memory to store recently dialed numbers;

making said determination by comparing said caller identification data from said incoming telephone call against either any of said caller identification memory, any of said recently dialed numbers stored in said redialed numbers memory, or any of said collection of numbers in said permanent directory memory to determine the existence of a match; and

writing said caller identification data from said incoming telephone call into said permanent memory if said comparison determines the existence of a match.

12. A method of automatic creation of an electronic telephone directory as defined in claim 10, wherein said step of determining includes the steps of:

evaluating whether the telephone number in said incoming call matches a number from said caller identification memory that has been called back for more than a programmable amount of times within a programmable time interval;

evaluating whether the telephone number in said incoming call matches a number from said caller identification memory that has been received repeatedly for more than a programmable amount of times within a programmable time interval; and

evaluating whether the telephone number in said incoming call matches a number from said redialed memory that has been repeatedly dialed out after and before a certain length of time.

13. A method of automatic creation of an electronic telephone directory as defined in claim 10, further comprising:

flagging numbers in said permanent memory that are to be permanently stored;

detecting when said permanent memory is full; and

deleting the number which has not been dialed for the longest length of time and not bearing a flag from said permanent memory.

14. The method of creating an electronic telephone directory as defined in claim 10, wherein said method further comprises:

providing an outgoing call number memory to store a dialed number that leads to a successful call connection;

providing an area code memory to store area codes of dialed numbers;

determining if a number in the outgoing call number memory contains an area code by determining if the length of the number is larger than a predetermined value;

extracting the area code and storing the area code into said area code memory if the area code is determined to be present in the number;

determining, for an outgoing call using a number from said caller identification memory, whether the area code of the number for the outgoing call matches one of the area codes stored in said area code memory;

dialing the area code of the number for said outgoing call and a predetermined prefix if a match is found; and

discarding the area code of the number for said outgoing call if a match is not found unless the user directs to the contrary.