Patent Publication Number: US-9854088-B2

Title: Method to tag a phone call to communicate purpose of the call

Description:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/578,772 filed Dec. 22, 2014, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/721,768 filed on Dec. 20, 2012, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,938,223. 
    
    
     FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
     Embodiments of the present invention are directed to tagging phone calls and, more particularly, to tagging a cell phone call with contextual information. 
     BACKGROUND INFORMATION 
     A telephone service commonly known as “Caller ID” allows a person who is receiving a telephone call to determine the calling party before the call is answered. Caller ID is available on landline phones and fairly standard for cellular phones. Caller ID involves the calling telephone device to transmit or otherwise have made available information, such as the phone number of the calling device, the name of the calling party, etc. The receiving telephone can use the information to determine whether to block the call, allow the call to go through, or to display the information on a display at the receiving telephone. 
     The receiving telephone, particularly in the cellular arena, has many options of what to do with Caller ID information. For example, it may associate the Caller ID with names or nicknames from an address book to be displayed, associate different ringtones or ring-back tones, associate pictures or photos to be displayed, etc. 
     The calling telephone device typically has fewer options available. For example, the only option the caller may have is to block the transmission of its Caller ID information resulting in “unknown” to be displayed at the receiving telephone. 
     Typically, when caller initiates the phone call to the receiver, the receiver does not have any idea about the caller&#39;s need intention or the urgency of the call. The receiver can only see who is calling. Based on the receiver&#39;s condition (busy/not busy) the receiver makes a judgment call as to whether or not to answer the incoming call immediately. At times, if the caller is in real need, perhaps due to an urgent need or emergency situation, for example, there is no way to communicate that context to the receiver unless the call is answered. The caller may have to resort to frantic calling to convey the urgency. In other scenarios, where receiver is not able to see the incoming call, the call logs (missed calls) do not indicate the call priority either. It is again left to the receiver to judge and decide whether to return the call later or not. Voice mail can provide some relief here, but voice mail needs to be accessed and listened to and often people do not take the time to check voicemail. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       The foregoing and a better understanding of the present invention may become apparent from the following detailed description of arrangements and example embodiments and the claims when read in connection with the accompanying drawings, all forming a part of the disclosure of this invention. While the foregoing and following written and illustrated disclosure focuses on disclosing arrangements and example embodiments of the invention, it should be clearly understood that the same is by way of illustration and example only and the invention is not limited thereto. 
         FIG. 1  is a block diagram of a mobile device according to one embodiment; 
         FIG. 2  is a block diagram showing a caller phone and a receiver phone where the caller phone can tag a call with an importance level or purpose to be displayed on the receiver phone; 
         FIG. 3  is an example menu which may be used to tag a call; 
         FIG. 4  is a block diagram showing context information received with the call according to one embodiment; 
         FIG. 5  is a block diagram showing context information for a call transferred to a shared memory on a network according to one embodiment; and 
         FIG. 6  is a flow diagram illustrating one embodiment of sending and receiving calls with context tags. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     Described is way to tag calls with the importance or the context of the call that may be displayed along with the caller ID information on the display of a receiving phone. The context information is thus made available even before the call is answered to aid the user in determining whether or not to answer the call or how long thereafter it would be appropriate to wait before the call is returned. 
     Reference throughout this specification to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment” means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the present invention. Thus, the appearances of the phrases “in one embodiment” or “in an embodiment” in various places throughout this specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment. Furthermore, the particular features, structures, or characteristics may be combined in any suitable manner in one or more embodiments. 
       FIG. 1  illustrates an embodiment of a mobile device or system. The mobile device may comprise a phone, a cell phone, a smart phone, a tablet, or any other device which, among other things, is capable of making calls. In some embodiments, a mobile device  100  includes one or more transmitters  102  and receivers  104  for transmitting and receiving data. In some embodiments, the mobile device includes one or more antennas  105  for the transmission and reception of data, where the antennas may include dipole, monopole antennas, patch antennas, etc. The mobile device  100  may further include a user interface  106 , including, but not limited to, a graphical user interface (GUI) or traditional keys. The mobile device  100  may further include one or more elements for the determination of physical location or velocity of motion, including, but limited to, a GPS receiver  108  and GPS circuitry  110 . 
     The mobile device  100  may further include one or more memories or sets of registers  112 , which may include non-volatile memory, such as flash memory, and other types of memory. The memory or registers  112  may include one more groups of settings  114  for the device  100 , including default settings, user-set settings established by user of the mobile device, and enterprise-set settings established by an enterprise, such as an employer, who is responsible for IT (information technology) support. The memory  112  may further include one or more applications  116 , including applications that support or control operations to send or receive a context of a call according to embodiments. The memory  112  may further include user data  118 , including data that may affect limitations of functionality of the mobile device and interpretations of the circumstances of use of the mobile device. For example, the user data  118  may include calendar data, contact data, address book data, pictures and video files, etc. 
     The mobile device  100  may include various elements that are related to the functions of the system. For example, the mobile device may include a display  120  and display circuitry  121  for displaying caller ID and context information; a microphone and speaker  122  and audio circuitry  123  including audible signaling (e.g., ringers); a camera  124  and camera circuitry  125 ; and other functional elements such as a table of call contexts  126 , according to one embodiment. The mobile device may further include one or more processors  128  to execute instructions, including instructions regarding the calling contexts. 
     Referring now to  FIG. 2 , there is shown two mobile devices, which may comprise a caller phone  200  and receiver phone  202 . While the caller phone and receiver phone,  200  and  202 , are shown to be the same type of phone, this is for illustrative purposes only. In practice the caller phone  200  and the receiver phone  202  may be different styles, brands, form factors, etc. Each of the caller phone  200  and receiver phone  202  may comprise mobile devices as shown and described above in  FIG. 1 . The caller phone  200  may comprise a display  204  and a user interface  210  which may include keys as shown, or a graphical user interface (GUI) for entering phone numbers, data or commands. Likewise, the receiver phone  202  may include a display  208  and a user interface  212  for similar functions. 
     According to one embodiment, the caller phone  200 , when making a phone call, may send context information  214  of the call to the receiver phone  202 . For example, sending call priority/importance along with the mobile phone call would enable a caller to communicate the importance of the call or the need to the receiver more effectively. 
     In the example shown in  FIG. 2 , the caller phone  200  may belong to John Smith and is making a call to the receiver phone  202  belonging to Mary Smith. The caller phone may have a tag function that tags the call with an information tag  214  indicating the importance level or purpose of the call. On the receiver phone  202  the display  208  may display the caller ID information which may include the phone number  216  of the caller phone  200  and the name  218 , John Smith, associated with the caller phone  200 . In addition, the tag information  214  may also be graphically displayed, in this case “important”  220 . This “important” tag  220  may cause Mary, the user of the receive phone, to take the call immediately or if not possible, to return the call as soon as possible. If, on the other hand, the call was tagged  220  with “low importance” or some other less urgent tag, then Mary may not answer and return the call at her leisure. 
     Thus, considering the call importance, the receiver can make a better judgment to answer the call immediately despite being busy. In case the call is missed due to receiver being busy or away from the phone  202 , the call logs will show the missed call along with the context tag indicating the importance of the call. This will allow the receiver to take immediate action and not wait to hear his/her voice mails to understand the need. 
     This concept can then be used for variety of purposes other than just communicating importance of the call. For instance, call tagging may be extended to pass not only the importance of the call but it could also do various other things such as passing the purpose of the call in the form of a short message that may displayed as is the caller ID. For example, when a call is received, it may be tagged with a question (e.g., need me to stop at supermarket?), a short piece of information (e.g. starting my coffee break), updating a status (e.g. will be busy in 10 minutes), marketing information (your bill is overdue), etc. Based on the tag, the phone on the receiver end could build further intelligence and provide much better user experience and value added service back to the end user. In other words, the context tags  214  may aid the user in determining not just the importance of the call, but in ascertaining the caller&#39;s future availability for a return call if the call cannot be answered immediately or allow the receiver of the call to prepare for the conversation once the voice call actually occurs. 
     Referring now to  FIG. 3 , there is shown a table comprising context information that may be sent along with a dialed phone call to be displayed. The table may be stored in the memory  112  of the mobile device in the table of call context module  126 , for example, as shown previously in  FIG. 1 . The non-exhaustive list of predefined context tags may include “Question”, “Important”, “Needs Follow Up”, “Low Importance”, and “Information”. In addition to the text tags discussed, icons relaying the same message, such as “i” “!”, “?”, a flag symbol, and “down arrow”,  300 , may also be used by the caller phone  200  and displayed on the receiver phone  202 . 
     Referring now to  FIG. 4 , there is shown a block diagram illustrating one embodiment for passing context tag information with a call. As shown, a receiver phone  402 , may include at least a communication processor  404  and an application processor  406 . These processors  404  and  406  may comprise a single processor performing both functions or multiple processors as shown. When a call is received, such as when the phone number of the receiver phone  402  is dialed by a caller phone (not shown), a network, such as a cellular network transmits the call which is received  408  by the receiver phone  402 . In this case, the received call  408  includes the context tag entered by the caller when dialing the call. The phone call carries the context tag along with it and gets proliferated through the network until it reaches the destination. The communications processor recognizes the phone number and causes the receiver phone  402  to ring. The context tag information  410  may be passed to the application processor  406  which interprets the context tag and displays it as text on the display  412 , which may also display the caller-id information. 
     Referring now to  FIG. 5 , there is shown another embodiment. Here, a caller phone  500  and a receiver phone  502  may both have access to a shared memory on the network or cloud  503 . As before, the receiver phone  502 , may include at least a communication processor  504  and an application processor  506 . Again, these processors  504  and  506  may comprise a single processor performing both functions or multiple processors as shown. A display  512  may also be present. Similarly, the caller phone  500  may comprise a communication processor  524  and an application processor  526  and a display  528 , as shown for example in  FIG. 2 . In this case, the context tag information may be entered on the caller phone  500  while making a call. For example, by pressing a number, corresponding to a predefined context message, followed by # key. Thus, the context tag is transferred  530  to the shared memory  503  on the network. The receiving phone  502  can query  532  the shared memory  503  for any additional context and retrieve it for further processing before rendering it for the user to see on the display  512 , prior to answering the call. 
       FIG. 6  is a flow diagram according to one embodiment. At block  600  a caller initiates a call to a desired party. The caller may do so by punching in a phone number on a keypad or GUI, using a look up from a stored address book, using a voice command, or any other method of dialing. In block  602 , before sending the call the user can attach a context tag indicating the general purpose of the call. The user may do this from a menu of predefined context tags, by pushing a button associated with a particular context tag, or perhaps speaking the tag for voice command enabled devices. In other embodiments the caller may also be able to customize the context tag by entering a short message or question. In block  604 , the caller sends the call. In block  606 , the receiving phone receives the call along with the context tag, and caller ID information if available. In response to the call, the receiver phone rings, as normal, but also displays the context tag for the receiving party to view. In this manner, the receiving party may use the context tag information to aid in determining whether or not to answer the call immediately, return the call at a later time appropriate to the context tag, or perhaps at least have a general idea of the nature of the call prior to answering. 
     According to embodiments, in one example, at least one machine readable storage medium comprises a set of instructions which, when executed by a processor, cause a first mobile device to receive a telephone call from a second mobile device, receive caller ID information corresponding to the second mobile device, receive a context tag sent by the second mobile device, and display the caller ID information and the context tag on a display of the first mobile device prior to the telephone call being answered. 
     In another example, the at least one machine readable medium as recited above the context tag is displayed as text indicating the importance the telephone call. 
     In another example, the at least one machine readable medium as recited above, the context tag is displayed as a symbol indicating the nature of the call. 
     In another example, the at least one machine readable medium as recited above wherein the context tag comprises a text message or text question. 
     In another example, the at least one machine readable medium as recited above wherein the context tag is received with the telephone call. 
     In yet another example the at least one machine readable medium as recited above further to query a memory on a network shared with the second mobile device, and to receive the context tag for the telephone call from the network. 
     In another example the at least one machine readable medium as recited above further to initiate a telephone call from dialed number, send caller ID information with the telephone call, and tag the telephone call with a context tag. 
     Another example may include a method, comprising a first mobile device receiving a telephone call from a second mobile device, receive caller ID information corresponding to the second mobile device, receive a context tag sent by the second mobile device, and display the caller ID information and the context tag on a display of the first mobile device prior to the telephone call being answered. 
     In another example the method as recited above wherein the context tag is displayed as text indicating the importance the telephone call. 
     In another example the method as recited above, wherein the context tag is displayed as a symbol indicating the nature of the call. 
     In another example the method as recited above wherein the context tag comprises a text message or text question. 
     In another example the method as recited above wherein the context tag is received with the telephone call. 
     In another example, the method as recited above further comprises query a memory on a network shared with the second mobile device, and receive the context tag for the telephone call from the network. 
     In yet another example a mobile phone device, comprises a user interface to receive user input, a display, a memory including a table of call contexts, wherein when a call is dialed a context tag for the call is entered with the user interface and the context tag is sent with the call to be viewed prior to the call being answered. 
     In another example, the mobile phone as recited above the context tag comprises text indicating the importance the telephone call. 
     In another example, the mobile phone as recited above the context tag comprises a symbol indicating the nature of the call. 
     In another example, the mobile phone as recited above the context tag comprises a text message or text question. 
     In another example, the mobile phone as recited above the received context tag is displayed on the display of the mobile phone. 
     In another example, the mobile device as recited above further comprises means to send the context tag to a memory on a network shared with a called mobile device. 
     The above description of illustrated embodiments, including what is described in the Abstract, is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the precise forms disclosed. While specific embodiments of, and examples are described herein for illustrative purposes, various equivalent modifications are possible within the scope of the invention, as those skilled in the relevant art will recognize. 
     These modifications can be made to the invention in light of the above detailed description. The terms used in the following claims should not be construed to limit the invention to the specific embodiments disclosed in the specification and the claims. Rather, the scope of the invention is to be determined entirely by the following claims, which are to be construed in accordance with established doctrines of claim interpretation.