MOBILE PHONE BASED SYSTEM FOR DISABLING A CELL PHONE WHILE TRAVELING

• US 20090215466A1
• Filed: 02/29/2008
• Published: 08/27/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 02/22/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Illume Software, Inc. (Securus Special Investments LLC)
• Original Assignee: Illume Software, Inc. (Securus Special Investments LLC)
• Inventors: Farrell, Frank, Ahl, Darcy, Mangione, Joe, Fernandez, Jose M., Vowell, Stephen
• Application Number:
  US12/040,581
• Publication Number:
  US 20090215466A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/456.100
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/66 with means for preventing unauthorised or fraudulent calling verifying user identity or authority in secret or secure digital communications H04L9/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72457 according to geographic location
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/10 including a GPS signal receiver

Abstract

The invention describes a method implemented on a mobile phone that will disable a cellular phone to prevent an incoming and outgoing or re-route an incoming cellular phone call/text/video/messages and the like if the cellular phone is known to be moving at a predetermined speed corresponding to an unsafe operation of a vehicle. The system and method will determine if the cellular phone is travelling at the predetermined speed and if so will alert the user, then perform any one or all of, a set of predetermined actions such as shutdown the phone, re-route all call to voice messages, store all text messages, shutdown the display, prevent outbound calling/texting, and the like. The invention prevents an individual from using their cellular phone while operating a moving vehicle at or above a predetermined speed.

Claims

1. A cellular phone comprising:

a location based tracking system;

a cellular blocking control operatively coupled to the location-based tracking system and receiving location data from said location based tracking system, and determining a speed traveled by the cellular phone between two successive determined positions; and

a database being configured to store control parameters for operation of the cellular phone;

the cellular blocking control determining whether the determined speed exceeds a predetermined speed stored in the database as a control parameter, and disabling the cellular phone when the determined speed exceeds the predetermined speed.

2. The cellular phone of claim 1, wherein said the location-based tracking system utilizes GPS.

3. The cellular phone of claim 1, wherein the location based tracking system utilizes cellular towers making up part of a cellular communications network.

4. The cellular phone of claim 1, wherein disabling is one of generating a busy signal in response to an incoming communication, shutting down the cellular phone and rerouting the incoming communication to a voicemail or email repository.

5. The cellular phone of claim 1, wherein said control parameter includes a phone number corresponding to a number for which the cellular phone is not disabled.

6. The cellular phone of claim 1, wherein said parameters are stored in said database at the time of manufacture of the cellular phone.

7. The cellular phone of claim 1, wherein at least one of said control parameters includes a parameter for preventing a user from changing the control parameters.

8. The cellular phone of claim 1, wherein the database is configured to store a location based map for determining the geographical location of at least one of a street and a railroad track.

9. A method for blocking communication with a cellular phone comprising the steps of:

storing cellular phone control parameters on the cellular phone, at least one of the parameters including a predetermined speed for the cellular phone;

determining the speed of the cellular phone;

comparing the determined speed of the cellular phone to the predetermined speed; and

disabling the cellular phone if the determined speed is greater than the predetermined speed.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein, disabling is one of generating a busy signal, shutting down the cellular phone and rerouting incoming communications.

11. The method of claim 9, further providing a ring tone alert to indicate the status of the cellular phone.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein disabling includes allowing emergency phone calls to be processed.

13. The method of claim 9 further comprising the steps of:

determining the geographic location of a street;

determining the geographic location of the cellular phone;

comparing the geographic location of the street to the geographic location of the cellular phone; and

preventing disabling of the cellular phone if the geographic location of the cellular phone does not correspond to the geographic location of the street.

14. The method of claim 9, further comprising the steps of:

determining the geographic location of a railroad track;

determining the geographic location of the cellular phone;

comparing the geographic location of the cellular phone and the geographic location of the railroad track; and

preventing disabling of the cellular phone when the geographic location of the railroad track corresponds to the geographic location of the cellular phone.

15. The method of claim 9, comprising the steps of:

determining the geographic location of a street;

determining the geographic location of a railroad track;

determining the geographic location of the cellular phone; and

disabling the cellular phone if the measured speed is greater than the predetermined speed and the geographic location of the cellular phone does not correspond to the geographic location of the railroad track and the geographic location of the street.

16. The method of claim 9, further comprising the step of storing the control parameters in the database at the time of manufacture.

17. The method of claim 9, further comprising the step of storing the control parameters by downloading the control parameters to the cellular phone.

18. The method claim 9, wherein said control parameters include parameters for allowing change of the control parameters only by predetermined persons.