Patent ID: 7486972

Claim:
A hands-free telephone apparatus for adding a hands-free telephone function to a connected telephone set, the apparatus comprising: a speaker for outputting voice received by the connected telephone set; a microphone for inputting voice to be transmitted from the connected telephone set; a state-information obtaining section for obtaining state information indicating a state of the telephone set from the connected telephone set when the telephone set is connected; a model-information storage section for storing model information indicating a correlation between a model of the telephone set and a command for obtaining a state of the telephone set from the telephone set of the model for a plurality of models, wherein the state-information obtaining section obtains model-identification information indicating a model of the telephone set from the connected telephone set when the telephone set is connected, and issues a command corresponding to the model indicated by the model information of the model indicated by the obtained model-identification information stored in the model-information storage section to the connected telephone set in order to obtain state information indicating the state of the telephone set and a warning section for warning a user to change the state of the telephone set when the state of the telephone set obtained by the state-information obtaining section restricts a function of the hands-free telephone apparatus available to the user.