Electronic fixed brand labeling

• US 9,549,009 B1
• Filed: 02/08/2013
• Issued: 01/17/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 02/08/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: T-Mobile Innovations LLC (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Original Assignee: Sprint Communications Company LP (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Inventors: Annan, Brandon C., Belser, John E., Schempp, Dale S.
• Primary Examiner(s): Higa, Brendan
• Assistant Examiner(s): Tseng, Leon Y
• Application Number:
  US13/763,443
• Time in Patent Office: 1,439 Days
• Field of Search: 709/219
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/60 Network streaming of media packets
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/00 Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications user-to-user messaging H04L51/00; network arrangements, protocols or services for supporting real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/21 for social networking applications

Abstract

Systems and methods for electrophoretically displaying a brand identifier of a telecommunications service provider or equipment manufacturer on the portable electronic device. The branding may be set at the manufacturer or when the user first powers the phone on. In addition, the branding may be wiped and reset if there is a change in ownership and/or telecommunications service provider of the portable electronic device. Periodically upon startup after the branding has been set and locked, making a user unable to manually change the branding at will, the portable electronic device may check to ensure the displayed branding is the same as or equivalent to the current brand.

Claims

1. A method of setting branding on an electrophoretic display of a mobile phone comprising:

determining, by an application stored in a non-transitory memory on a mobile phone while the mobile phone is powered on, if a branding from a branding package is set for display on an electrophoretic display of the mobile phone, wherein the determination is based on whether an internal indicator of the mobile phone is in an unlocked state, and wherein the internal indicator is stored in the non-transitory memory and comprises a value of locked or unlocked;

retrieving, by the application in response to a determination that the indicator is in an unlocked state, information from at least one of a brand identifier or a device identifier;

selecting, based on the information retrieved, the branding associated with a telecommunications service provider;

loading branding information associated with the selected branding of the telecommunications service provider;

locking the branding information associated with the selected branding into the electrophoretic display, wherein locking the branding information associated with the selected branding comprises changing the internal indicator to a locked state; and

displaying, on the electrophoretic display of the mobile phone, the branding information associated with selected branding while the mobile phone is powered off, wherein the electrophoretic display and the branding information displayed on the electrophoretic display cannot be changed while the internal indicator is in the locked state.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the branding package is stored on at least one of the mobile phone or on a remote server.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of brands is pre-loaded on to the mobile phone by one of the mobile phone manufacturer or the telecommunications service provider.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the locked branding is displayed when the mobile phone is subsequently powered on.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein powering on the device comprises powering on the mobile phone by a first user of the mobile phone.

6. A system of setting branding on an electrophoretic display of a mobile phone comprising:

a server comprising at least one server processor and a server non-transitory memory, wherein information regarding a plurality of mobile phones on a telecommunications network is stored in the server non-transitory memory; and

a mobile phone, wherein the mobile phone comprises;

a processor;

an electrophoretic display;

a non-transitory memory comprising a user memory partition and a carrier memory partition; and

an application stored in the non-transitory memory and executable on the processor, wherein the application;

determines if an initial branding associated with a current telecommunications provider is set, based on whether an internal indicator stored in the non-transitory memory comprises a locked state, wherein the locked state indicates that the initial branding is set,

retrieves, in response to the determination that the initial branding has been previously set, information from a brand identifier and a device identifier, wherein the device identifier comprises a plurality of information comprising at least a screen size, an active display size, and a screen resolution associated with the mobile phone,

changes the internal indicator to an unlocked state,

in response to a determination that the internal indicator comprises an unlocked state, selects a subsequent branding of a branding package associated with a subsequent telecommunications service provider to be displayed,

loads branding information associated with the selected subsequent branding of the subsequent telecommunications service provider,

locks the branding information associated with the selected subsequent branding into the electrophoretic display by changing the internal indicator to the locked state; and

displays the branding information associated with the selected subsequent branding of the subsequent telecommunications services provider on the electrophoretic display of the mobile phone, wherein the electrophoretic display and the branding information displayed on the electrophoretic display cannot be changed while the internal indicator is in the locked state.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the brand identifier is stored on the mobile phone in at least one of the carrier memory partition or the user memory partition.

8. The system of claim 6, wherein at least a portion of the information of the device identifier is retrieved by the application.

9. The system of claim 6, wherein the brand identifier comprises the subsequent telecommunications service provider associated with the mobile phone.

10. The system of claim 6, wherein, in response to being locked, the branding is electrophoretically displayed while the mobile phone is powered off.

11. The system of claim 10 wherein, in response to being locked, the branding is electrophoretically displayed when the mobile phone is powered on.

12. A method of setting branding on a display of a mobile phone comprising:

determining, by an application on a mobile phone, in response to the mobile phone being powered on, if an initial branding is set for display on a display of the mobile phone, wherein the determination that the initial branding is set is based on whether an internal indicator stored in a non-transitory memory of the mobile phone comprises a locked state;

retrieving, by the application, from a branding identifier, a plurality of branding information;

determining, by the application, if the initial branding set for display is the correct branding based on a comparison between the initial branding and the plurality of branding information retrieved from the brand identifier;

in response to a determination that the information from the brand identifier does not the match the initial branding set for display, changing, by the application, the internal indicator to an unlocked state;

in response to a determination that the internal indicator comprises an unlocked state, selecting, by the application, a subsequent branding of a telecommunications service provider to be displayed based at least in part on the information retrieved by the application from the brand identifier;

loading, by the application, branding information associated with the selected subsequent branding;

locking, by the application, the branding information associated with the selected subsequent branding into the display by changing the internal indicator to the locked state; and

displaying the branding information associated with the selected subsequent branding on the display of the mobile phone while the mobile phone is powered off, wherein the display and the branding information displayed on the display cannot be changed while the internal indicator is in the locked state.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising a device identifier, wherein the device identifier comprises a plurality of information comprising at least a screen size, an active display size, a screen resolution, and a telecommunications network associated with the mobile phone.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the mobile phone has been previously powered on.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein the initial branding and the subsequent branding are at least one of different sizes, different resolutions, or are associated with different telecommunications service providers.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein the initial branding is from one of the telecommunications service provider, a subsidiary of the telecommunications service provider, and a parent company of the telecommunications service provider.

17. The method of claim 12, wherein the brand identifier comprises the telecommunications service provider associated with the mobile phone.