Patent ID: 7206395

Claim:
A telephone apparatus comprising: a call section that carries out a call-in-progress with one of a plurality of telephone apparatuses; a call waiting section that notifies a user of the telephone apparatus of an incoming call during the call-in-progress, holds the call-in-progress, and connects the incoming call; a telephone number acquisition section that acquires the telephone number of the telephone apparatus producing the incoming call; a telephone directory information registration section that registers telephone numbers associated with name information of telephone users; a caller determination section that searches said telephone numbers of said telephone directory information registration section based on said telephone number acquired by said telephone number acquisition section, determines whether or not said telephone number of the incoming call matches a telephone number within said telephone directory information registration section, and, if a match exists between the telephone number of the incoming call and a telephone number stored by the registration section, determines the name of the caller associated with the incoming call; an incoming call notification determination section that determines whether or not to notify the telephone apparatus user of the incoming call; a character string speech conversion section that converts character information of the name of said caller, determined by said caller determination section, to speech information; and a caller information notification section that notifies the telephone apparatus user of the name of the caller associated with the incoming call, when said incoming call arrives during a call-in-progress and said incoming call notification section determines that the incoming call notification is required, using said speech information from said character string speech conversion section with speech at a volume level which does not disturb the call-in-progress.