A mobile telephone incorporates a liquid crystal display to provide its user with information concerning the status of the telephone and to enable a large number of different functions to be accessed and selected easily. As the display is usually fairly small, only very limited information can be displayed on it at the same time otherwise it becomes cluttered and difficult to read. Therefore, to select a particular function, the user generally needs to access one or more menus listing various options. By selecting one of those options the function may be performed or a sub-menu may appear listing further options specifically associated with the initial menu selection.
A disadvantage with a conventional mobile telephone having a small display is that for many functions there are a considerable number of different options listed in each menu or sub-menu only part of which can be displayed at once. To view the remaining options listed in the menu or sub-menu, the user must scroll down the list so that those at the top of the list disappear off the top of the screen and those at the bottom of the list come into view. Although this arrangement works fairly well, sometimes it is desirable to be able to see the whole menu or sub-menu to avoid confusion and improve functionality and ease of use. Confusion particularly occurs when multiple calls are received simultaneously as the list of call handling options for a plurality of calls becomes very long. Furthermore, although active voice calls, waiting voice calls, held voice calls and data calls may have individual options specific to that particular type of call, some options apply to all types of calls and it can be difficult for the user to easily remember which option applies to which call especially when active, held and waiting calls are all pending simultaneously and this leads to call handling errors It is also slower for the user to access the required option as the menu listing all the options for these calls is very long and so the user sometimes has to scroll through a large number of options before the required option is located.
Some conventional mobile telephones have attempted to solve this problem by referencing an active call with an index number that appears on the display together with the list of all the different call options for each call so that the user can tell whether the option they select will apply to the active call. However, to show the status of all calls when there are several active at once, index numbers for each call would have to be displayed. This makes the display too cluttered and it therefore becomes even harder to read. This problem will become more significant in the future when telephones capable of handling even more pending calls at the same time are developed.
A common problem with call handling multiple calls is the function performed by the “End” key which is generally used to terminate a call. However, in circumstances where there are multiple pending calls, it is not immediately apparent to a user which call they are terminating when the “End” key is actuated. Again, this renders the call handling facility difficult to use and prone to user error.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds