Apparatus and method for controlling wireless terminal

• US 7,760,696 B2
• Filed: 10/19/2004
• Issued: 07/20/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 11/03/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: Woo, Moo-Yeon, Lee, Gui-Jung
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen; David Q
• Application Number:
  US10/967,193
• Publication Number:
  US 20050094612A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,100 Days
• Field of Search: 370/342, 370/335, 455/414, 455/421, 455/26.1, 379/56.3
• US Class Current: 370/342
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72463 to restrict the functionality of the device

Abstract

An apparatus and method for controlling a wireless terminal, including parameter information to control a camera function of the wireless terminal is set, a camera control message to automatically control the camera function is set to be transmitted through a message transmission unit, the wireless terminal obtains the camera control message periodically transmitted from the message transmission unit, and a camera mode is automatically converted through parameter information of the obtained camera control message, so that it is possible to protect the camera function of the wireless terminal from malicious use.

Claims

1. A system for controlling a wireless terminal, comprising:

a case having a signal blocking function to prevent the signal transmitted from a base station for an external wireless communication from inflowing into the system,

a signal transmission apparatus for generating a control signal including control information to control a function mode of said wireless terminal and transmitting the control signal, and

at least one wireless terminal for setting a function mode according to the control information in the information included in the control signal when the control signal transmitted from said signal transmission apparatus is received,

wherein said function mode is a turning on and turning off of a camera contained in said wireless terminal when entering and leaving a designated area,

wherein the control information is transmitted in fields in either a System Parameter Message, or a Sync Channel Message, or System Information Block, or a SYS_INFO Message in a CDMA (code-division multiple access), WCDMA (wideband code-division multiple access) and GSM (global system for mobile communication) protocol respectively.

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein said signal transmission apparatus stores control information according to different communication schemes and periodically generates the control signal using the control information.

3. The system according to claim 2, wherein the communication scheme is at least one of a global system for mobile telecommunication scheme, a code division multiple access communication scheme and a wideband code division multiple access communication scheme.

4. The scheme according to claim 1, wherein said signal transmission apparatus generates a control signal according to the code division multiple access communication scheme after including the control information in a reserved field of a BASE_CLASS field of a System Parameter Message or a PART field of a Sync Channel Message.

5. The system according to claim 1, wherein said signal transmission apparatus generates a control signal according to the wideband code division multiple access communication scheme after including the control information in a system information block type which is newly defined.

6. The system according to claim 1, wherein said signal transmission apparatus generates a control signal according to the global system for mobile communication scheme after including the control information in a reserved field of fields of a SYS_INFO message.

7. The system according to claim 1, wherein said wireless terminal stores function setting information according to the control information, analyzes the control information of the received control signal, searches for the function setting information according to the control information and sets a function mode according to the corresponding function setting information.

8. The system according to claim 1, wherein the function mode is at least one of a camera on or off mode of said wireless terminal, a network connection on or off mode where data is transmitted on the wireless network, and a mute mode or a vibration mode.

9. The system according to claim 1, wherein said signal transmission apparatus, comprises:

a storage unit for storing control information to control a function mode of the wireless terminal which uses different communication schemes; and

a signal processing portion for generating a control signal according to the control information stored in the storage unit and transmitting the signal in a wireless scheme.

10. A method of controlling a camera function of a wireless terminal, comprising:

setting parameter information and frequency band information of each of a plurality of protocols through a user interface unit of a management server;

when setting parameter information and frequency band information of each of the plurality of protocols, generating, by a control unit, the corresponding protocol tables using the parameter information and frequency band information set and storing the tables in a memory unit;

generating said camera control signal by each of a plurality of signal transmission apparatus, the camera control signal with reference to the protocol table stored in said memory unit and transmitting the generated camera control signal;

when a case of a camera function control unit performs a blocking function to intercept the signal of said wireless terminal, said wireless terminal starts the search to receive signals from the new system;

from the search to receive signals from the new system, setting a wireless channel between said wireless terminal and said signal transmission apparatus and obtaining by said wireless terminal, the camera control signal transmitted from said signal transmission apparatus equipped in said case;

recognizing by said wireless terminal, the parameter information of the obtained camera control signal, and then determining whether the camera control signal is the camera on control signal or the camera off control signal.