Bookmarking method and apparatus for an electronic phone book

• US 7,110,529 B2
• Filed: 04/03/2002
• Issued: 09/19/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 04/26/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (Samsung Group)
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (Samsung Group)
• Inventors: Kang, Sun-Kyoung
• Primary Examiner(s): Anderson, Matthew
• Assistant Examiner(s): Pham, Tuan
• Application Number:
  US10/115,606
• Publication Number:
  US 20020159583A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,630 Days
• Field of Search: 379/355.02, 379/355.03, 379/355.09, 379/356.01, 379/357.05, 379/373.01, 379/373.03, 379/377, 379/372
• US Class Current: 379/355.02
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/2746 Sorting, e.g. according to history or frequency of use

Abstract

A method and an apparatus for using an electronic phone book in a communication terminal are provided. If a user manually requests a phone number to be registered as a bookmark, or the number of calls to the phone number exceeds a predetermined first threshold, the phone number is saved in a bookmark DB. Upon user request for a bookmark mode operation, bookmarked phone numbers are presented. If the number of calls to a phone number stored in the bookmark DB for a predetermined time period does not exceed a predetermined second threshold, the phone number is deleted from the bookmark DB. Therefore, the user can give a call without memorizing frequently used phone numbers or direct dialing.

Claims

1. A bookmarking method in a terminal having a phone number database (DB) for storing phone numbers in an electronic phone book and a bookmark DB, comprising the steps of:

counting the number of calls to each phone number;

storing a phone number in the phone number DB in response to a phone number registration request for the phone number; and

automatically storing a phone number in the bookmark DB if the number of calls to the phone number exceeds a predetermined first threshold; and

deleting the phone number from the bookmark DB if the number of calls to the phone number for a predetermined time period does not exceed a predetermined second threshold.

2. The bookmarking method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

counting numbers of calls to each phone number stored in the bookmark DB.

3. The bookmarking method of claim 1, wherein the bookmark DB and the phone number DB are stored in different memories.

4. The bookmarking method of claim 1, wherein the bookmark DB and the phone number DB are stored in different storing areas of the same memory.

5. A bookmarking method in a terminal having a phone number DB for storing phone numbers in an electronic phone book and a bookmark DB, comprising the steps of:

receiving a phone number in the terminal;

storing the received phone number in the phone number DB in response to a phone number registration request for the phone number;

storing the received phone number in the bookmark DB in response to a bookmark registration request for the phone number, wherein the bookmark registration request is selected from a request by a user and an automatic request issued when the number of calls to the phone number exceeds a predetermined first threshold; and

deleting the received phone number from the bookmark DB if the number of calls to the received phone number for a predetermined time period does not exceed a predetermined second threshold.

6. The bookmarking method of claim 5, wherein the bookmark DB and the phone number DB are stored in different memories.

7. The bookmarking method of claim 5, wherein the bookmark DB and the phone number DB are stored in different storing areas of the same memory.

8. A bookmarking method in a terminal having a phone number DB for storing phone numbers in an electronic phone book and a bookmark DB, comprising the steps of:

storing a phone number in the phone number DB in response to a phone number registration request for the phone number;

displaying bookmarked phone numbers stored in the bookmark DB upon a user request for a bookmark mode operation, wherein the bookmarked phone numbers are stored in response to a request selected from a request by a user and an automatic request issued when the number of calls to a phone number exceeds a predetermined first threshold;

automatically dialing a phone number if the phone number is selected among the displayed bookmarked phone numbers; and

deleting the phone number from the bookmark DB if the number of calls to the phone number for a predetermined time period does not exceed a predetermined second threshold.

9. A terminal using an electronic phone book, comprising:

a phone number DB for storing at least one phone number entered by a user in response to a phone number registration request for the phone number;

a bookmark DB for storing at least one manually user-registered phone number and/or at least one automatically registered phone number, wherein the automatically registered phone number is stored if the number of calls to that phone number exceeds a predetermined first threshold; and

a controller for searching the phone number DB for the at least one phone number or searching the bookmark DB for the at least one bookmarked phone number in response to a user request, wherein if the number of calls to the at least one phone number registered in the bookmark DB for a predetermined time period does not exceed a predetermined second threshold, the phone number is deleted from the bookmark DB.