Patent ID: 7606598

Claim:
A method for initiating telephone calls from a mobile device which operates in a wireless communication network, comprising: displaying text on a visual display of the mobile device; moving a position marker on the visual display throughout the displayed text in response to a navigational input by a user to the mobile device; monitoring for a predetermined user input to the mobile device and upon detecting the predetermined user input causing a list of user selectable functions to be displayed on the visual display, wherein the displayed list of user selectable functions does not include a telephone call function for a non-hyperlinked number string if the non-hyperlinked number string does not meet predetermined criteria; determining if the position marker is located within a non-hyperlinked number string in the displayed text when the predetermined user input is detected and causing the displayed list of user selectable functions to include a telephone call function for initiating a telephone call to the non-hyperlinked number string; causing, if a user selects from the list of functions the initiate a telephone call function, a telephone call to the non-hyperlinked number string to be initiated through the wireless communications network, wherein displaying the text on the visual display includes: (i) detecting any number strings within at least a portion of the text and comparing the number strings against further criteria to detect number strings that are telephone number strings, wherein the further criteria is more stringent than the predetermined criteria; (ii) causing a hyperlink to be created for each number string detected as a telephone number string; causing the hyperlink for a telephone number string to be highlighted when selected by a user during the displaying of the text; determining if the hyperlink of a telephone number string is selected by a user when the predetermined user input is detected and if so, causing the displayed list of user selectable functions to include a telephone call function for initiating a telephone call to the selected hyperlinked telephone number string; and causing, if a user selects from the list of functions the initiate a telephone call function, a telephone call to the selected hyperlinked telephone number string to be initiated through the wireless communications network.