Methods and apparatuses for programming user-defined information into electronic devices

• US 7,257,395 B2
• Filed: 08/16/2002
• Issued: 08/14/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 12/06/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Solocron Media, LLC (Solocron Group, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Twenty Year Innovations Incorporated
• Inventors: Shanahan, Michael E
• Primary Examiner(s): Tran, Congvan
• Application Number:
  US10/223,200
• Publication Number:
  US 20030008646A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,824 Days
• Field of Search: 455/418, 455/413, 455/414.1, 455/412, 455/1, 455/419, 455/420, 455/424, 455/425, 379/67.1, 379/68, 379/88.01, 379/88.02
• US Class Current: 455/418
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/61 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 17/00 Digital computing or data processing equipment or methods, specially adapted for specific functions information retrieval, database structures or file system structures therefor G06F16/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1069 Session establishment or de-establishment
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72409 by interfacing with external accessories hands-free H04M1/60
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72412 using two-way short-range wireless interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72442 for playing music files
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72445 for supporting Internet browser applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72448 with means for adapting the functionality of the device according to specific conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/02 Arrangements for optimising operational condition
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/14 Direct-mode setup

Abstract

A device for programming user-defined information into an electronic device is provided. The programmer allows a user to program customized information, such as user-selected audio, video, or Internet access information into his or her programmable device. Such electronic devices include wireless telephones, pagers, and personal digital assistants. The programmer allows a user to, among other things, customize the device to suit his or her particular taste.

Claims

1. A wireless telephone that may be customized by programming a digital audio file into the wireless telephone for use as an indicia of an incoming communication, the telephone comprising:

a communications link capable of connecting substantially directly to a remote database that includes a plurality of lists of digital audio files;

a display screen and a mobile browsing application that allows a user of the wireless telephone to browse at least one of the plurality of lists of digital audio files and view selectable digital audio files present in the browsed list;

a speaker and processing circuitry configured to allow the user to optionally review a selected digital audio file with the mobile browsing application before downloading the selected digital audio file into the wireless telephone; and

a programmable memory circuit for allowing the user to optionally store the selected digital audio file for use as an indicia of an incoming communication.

2. The wireless telephone of claim 1 wherein the programmable memory circuit is configured to store digital audio files in a format selected from the group comprising:

MIDI, MPEG, MP3, WAV, PCM, Windows Media Audio code (WMA), or Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding (ATRAC).

3. The wireless telephone of claim 1 wherein the speaker and processing circuitry is configured to play digital audio files in a format selected from the group comprising:

MIDI, MPEG, MP3, WAV, PCM, Windows Media Audio code (WMA), or Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding (ATRAC).

4. The wireless telephone of claim 1 wherein the wireless telephone is configured to allow the user to search the remote database for a certain desired digital audio file using title or description information to aid in locating the desired digital audio file.

5. The wireless telephone of claim 4 wherein the wireless telephone is configured to search the Internet or other remote databases for the desired digital audio file.

6. The wireless telephone of claim 1 wherein the mobile browsing application includes a Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) compliant browser.

7. The wireless telephone of claim 1 configured to provide a visual indication on the display screen to confirm the selected digital audio file has been successfully downloaded.

8. The wireless telephone of claim 1 configured to allow the user to associate a downloaded digital audio file with a characteristic indicative of a caller such that the associated digital audio file plays when the indicative characteristic is received by the wireless telephone.

9. The wireless telephone of claim 8 wherein the characteristic indicative of the caller is the caller'"'"'s telephone number.

10. The wireless telephone of claim 1 wherein the wireless telephone is configured to prevent the unauthorized distribution of a digital audio file stored in the programmable memory circuit.

11. The wireless telephone of claim 1 wherein the speaker is an enhanced performance speaker capable of providing a substantially full range of audio sounds from MIDI, MP3, MPEG, WAV, PCM, Windows Media Audio Code (WMA), or Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding (ATRAC) files.

12. The wireless telephone of claim 1 configured to provide an indication that a memory capacity of the wireless telephone has been exceeded if the size of the digital audio file to be downloaded is larger than available memory space in the wireless telephone.

13. The wireless telephone of claim 12 configured to provide the user of the wireless telephone with the opportunity to cancel or modify a download request associated with a digital audio file download operation if the size of the digital audio file to be downloaded is larger than the available memory space in the wireless telephone.

14. A wireless telephone that may be customized by programming a digital audio file into the wireless telephone for use as an indicia of an incoming communication, the telephone comprising:

a communications link capable of connecting substantially directly to a remote database that includes a plurality of lists of digital audio files;

a display screen and a mobile browsing application that allows a user of the wireless telephone to browse at least one of the plurality of lists of digital audio files and view selectable digital audio files present in the browsed list;

processing circuitry configured to receive a selected digital audio file from the communications link; and

a programmable memory circuit for allowing the user to optionally store the selected audio file for use as an indicia of an incoming communication.

15. The wireless telephone of claim 14 further comprising a speaker that operates in conjunction with the processing circuitry to allow the user to optionally review a selected digital audio file before downloading the selected audio file into the wireless telephone.

16. The wireless telephone of claim 14 wherein the programmable memory circuit is configured to store digital audio files in a format selected from the group comprising:

MIDI, MPEG, MP3, WAV, PCM, Windows Media Audio code (WMA), or Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding (ATRAC).

17. The wireless telephone of claim 14 wherein the speaker and processing circuitry is configured to play digital audio files in a format selected from the group comprising:

MIDI, MPEG, MP3, WAV, PCM, Windows Media Audio code (WMA), or Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding (ATRAC).

18. The wireless telephone of claim 14 wherein the wireless telephone is configured to allow the user to search the remote database for a certain desired digital audio file using title or description information to aid in locating the desired audio file.

19. The wireless telephone of claim 14 wherein the mobile browsing application includes a Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) compliant browser.

20. The wireless telephone of claim 14 configured to provide a visual indication on the display screen to confirm the selected digital audio file has been successfully downloaded.

21. The wireless telephone of claim 14 configured to allow the user to associate a downloaded digital audio file with a characteristic indicative of a caller such that the associated digital audio file plays when the indicative characteristic is received by the wireless telephone.

22. A wireless telephone that may be customized by searching for and selecting an audio file from a remote computer and programming the selected audio file into the wireless telephone for use as an indicia of an incoming communication, the telephone comprising:

a communications link capable of connecting to a database in the remote computer that includes a plurality of lists of audio files in MPEG, or WAV, or MP3 format or a combination thereof;

a display screen and a mobile Internet browser that allows a user of the wireless telephone to browse at least one of the lists of lists of audio files and view selectable audio files present in the browsed list;

processing circuitry configured to receive a selected one of the audio files from the communications link;

a programmable memory circuit for allowing the user to optionally store the selected audio file for use as an indicia of an incoming communication; and

an enhanced performance speaker capable of providing a substantially full range of audio sounds when one of the selected audio files is played as an indicia of an incoming communication.

23. The wireless telephone of claim 22 configured to provide an indication that a memory capacity of the wireless telephone has been exceeded if the size of the audio file to be downloaded is larger than the available memory space in the wireless telephone.

24. The wireless telephone of claim 22 wherein the enhanced performance speaker operates in conjunction with the processing circuitry to allow the user to optionally review the selected audio file before downloading the selected audio file into the wireless telephone.

25. The wireless telephone of claim 22 configured to allow the user to search the database for a certain desired audio file using title or description information to aid in locating a desired audio file.

26. The wireless telephone of claim 22 configured to prevent the unauthorized distribution of the audio file stored in the programmable memory circuit.

27. The wireless telephone of claim 22 wherein the group of polyphonic audio files includes audio files in polyphonic MIDI format.

28. The wireless telephone of claim 24 configured to provide the user of the wireless telephone with the option of downloading the selected polyphonic audio file into a programmable memory in the wireless telephone after reviewing the selected polyphonic audio file.

29. The wireless telephone of claim 28 configured to provide the user of the wireless telephone with the option of modifying the selected polyphonic audio file before programming the selected polyphonic audio file into the programmable memory in the wireless telephone.

30. A wireless telephone that may be customized by searching for and selecting an audio file from a remote computer and programming the selected audio file into the wireless telephone for as an indicia of an incoming communication, the telephone comprising:

a communications link capable of connecting to a database in the remote computer that includes a plurality of polyphonic audio files;

a display screen and a browsing application program that allows a user of the wireless telephone to browse the polyphonic audio files and select at least one polyphonic audio file therefrom;

processing circuitry configured to supervise receipt of a selected polyphonic audio file from the communications link;

a programmable memory circuit for allowing the user to optionally store the selected polyphonic audio file for use as an indicia of an incoming communication; and

an enhanced performance speaker capable of providing a substantially full range of audio sounds from the selected polyphonic audio file when the selected polyphonic audio file is played.

31. The wireless telephone of claim 30 wherein the polyphonic audio file is selected from the group comprising MP3, MPEG, or WAV files.

32. The wireless telephone of claim 30 wherein the enhanced performance speaker operates in conjunction with the processing circuitry to allow the user to optionally review the selected polyphonic audio file before downloading the selected polyphonic audio file into the programmable memory circuit of the wireless telephone.

33. The wireless telephone of claim 30 configured to prevent the unauthorized distribution of the selected polyphonic audio file stored in the programmable memory circuit.

34. The wireless telephone of claim 31 wherein the wireless telephone is configured to operate in conjunction with copyright protection software to prevent the unauthorized distribution of the selected polyphonic audio file stored in the programmable memory circuit.

35. The wireless telephone of claim 30 wherein the selected polyphonic audio file is in polyphonic MIDI format.

36. The wireless telephone of claim 30 wherein the browsing application program is a Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) compliant browsing program.

37. The wireless telephone of claim 36 configured to provide the user of the wireless telephone with the option of modifying the selected polyphonic audio file before programming the selected polyphonic audio file into the programmable memory in the wireless telephone.

38. The wireless telephone of claim 33 wherein the wireless telephone is configured to operate in conjunction with copyright protection software to prevent the unauthorized distribution of the selected polyphonic audio file stored in the programmable memory circuit.

39. A wireless telephone that may be customized by searching for and selecting an audio file from a remote computer and programming the selected audio file into the wireless telephone for use as an indicia of an incoming communication, the telephone comprising:

a communications link capable of connecting to a database in the remote computer that includes a plurality of polyphonic audio files;

a display screen and a browsing application program that allows a user of the wireless telephone to browse the polyphonic audio files and select at least one polyphonic audio file therefrom;

processing circuitry configured to supervise receipt of a selected polyphonic audio file from the communications link;

a programmable memory circuit for allowing the user to optionally store the selected polyphonic audio file for use as an indicia of an incoming communication; and

an enhanced performance speaker capable of providing a substantially full range of audio sounds from the selected polyphonic audio file when the selected polyphonic audio file is played.

40. The wireless telephone of claim 39 wherein the polyphonic audio file is selected from the group comprising MP3, MPEG, or WAV files.

41. The wireless telephone of claim 39 wherein the enhanced performance speaker operates in conjunction with the processing circuitry to allow the user to optionally review the selected polyphonic audio file before downloading the selected polyphonic audio file into the programmable memory circuit of the wireless telephone.

42. The wireless telephone of claim 39 configured to prevent the unauthorized distribution of the selected polyphonic audio file stored in the programmable memory circuit.

43. The wireless telephone of claim 39 wherein the polyphonic audio files includes audio files in polyphonic MIDI format.

44. The wireless telephone of claim 41 configured to provide the user of the wireless telephone with the option of downloading the selected polyphonic audio file into a programmable memory in the wireless telephone after reviewing the selected polyphonic audio file.

45. The wireless telephone of claim 41 configured to provide the user of the wireless telephone with the option of modifying the selected polyphonic audio file before programming the selected polyphonic audio file into the programmable memory in the wireless telephone.

46. The wireless telephone of claim 39 wherein the wireless telephone is configured to operate in conjunction with copyright protection software to prevent the unauthorized distribution of the selected polyphonic audio file stored in the programmable memory circuit.