Paging receiver equipped with a display

2~~12'~40 -1 PAGING RF'sCEIVER EQUIPPED WITH A DISPLAY HAC:KGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1.

Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a paging receiver equipped with a display for displaying a received message on a screen.

2.

Description of the Prior Art With recent: conspiquous technical innovation of pagers, a pager o~ith a display is playing a roll as the main current therE:among which has a function to display on a screen a messagES such as a telephone number of a calling party instead of a tone-only type which has a function to inform a carrier of the pager of calling through a ringing sound.

In prior a:rt practice of such a pager with the display, information is received without limitation of a calling party and a time of sending or receiving of a calling signal.

Since the prior art pager is adapted to receive information without limitation of the calling party and the time of sending or receiving of any calling signal as described above, it is impossible to change the time period of limitation of calling depending upon the time for example.

This makes it impossible to properly use the ~~o~~~o -2pager, say the use of the same for business purpose within the working houra or the use of the same outside the working hours.

Accordingly, a user of the pager may be called for his business outside the working hours or if a power supply to the pager is interrupted to prevent a user from being called for his business outside the working hours, a private call for the user is prevented from being received by the pager.

For solving the difficulty, the present applicant proposed one type of such pagers in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No.

Hei 4-326632 wherein use is made of different informing means which are operable in different time zones.

In accordance with this pager, there is employed in the working hours alarming means different from that used outside the working hours or use is made of a non-ringing sound so that proper use is made between business calls and private calls.

The pager however suffers from another problem of a carrier of the pager being not informed of business requirements outside the working hours.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a paging receiver equipped with a display wherein proper use thereof: in desired time zones is ensured without interruption of a power supply to the pager together with secure information transfer at all times.

2102740 - 3 In accordance with the paging receiver with the display of the present invention, only in the case where a preset specific password is involved in a received message, alarm and display of a message are allowed, and when the specific password is different from a password inherent to a user, the alarm and display are allowed only outside a set prohibition time zone while they are prohibited within the prohibit ion t ime 2;one .

In accordance with the present invention there is provided a paging receiver equipped with a display, said display being ada~~ted to inform a user of a call with a ringing sound when, a paging number included in received data is coincident with a paging number allocated to the user and to display a received message, said paging receiver comprising: a password collator means for comparing a password contained) in the received data with a stored password; time setting means for setting times of commencement and completion of an alarming prohibition time zone; and alarming/display control means for (a) permitting said display to execute alarming and display when said passwords are coincident with each other, (b) permitting said display to execute alarming and display when said passwords are not coincident only at times outside the prohibition time zone set by said time setting means, (c) preventing said display from alarming and from displaying a message at all times within the prohibition time zone when said passwords are not coincident.

In accordance with the present invention there is 74640-5 - 3a - 2102740 further provided ~~ paging receiver equipped with a display, said display being adapted to inform a user of a call with a ringing sound when a paging number included in received data is coincident with a paging number allocated to a user and to displaying a received message, said paging receiver comprising: a pa:csword storage means; a password collator means for comparing a password contained in the received data with a password stored in said password storage means; time setting means for setting times of commencement and completion of an alarming prohibition time zone; and a prohibition time storage means for storing the times of commencement and completion of the prohibition time zone set by said time setting means; a riiessage storage means= and alarming/display control means for (a) permitting said display to execute alarming and display when said passwords are coincident with each other, (b) permitting said display to execute alarming and display when ::aid passwords are not coincident only at times outside the prohibition time zone set by said setting means, (c) preventing said display from alarming and from displaying a message at all times within the prohibition time zone when said pa:cswords are not coincident.

The above and other objects, features, and advantages of the invention will become more apparent from the following description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawj.ngs.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a preferred 74640-5 ', - 3b embodiment of a dj.splay-equipped paging receiver according to the present invent; ion;

FIG. 2A illu:~trates a format of calling signals for a conventional paging receiver and FIG. 2B illustrates a format of calling signal:; for a paging receiver of the present invention;

FIG . 3 is a f' lowchart i l lust rat ing a procedure of alarming operation of reception of a password in the present preferred embodiment.

DETAILED D1~SCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT In what follows, there will be described a preferred z~" ~~~;"~.~, 74640-5 -4embodiment of a paging receiver with a display according to the present invention with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Referring to FIGs.l and 3, there are illustrated a preferred embodiment of the present invention in the form of a block diagram and a procedure of alarm/display operation upon reception of a password in the present preferred embodiment in the form of a flowchart.

As illustrated in FIG.1, a paging receiver with a display of the present embodiment is comprised of a radio portion 2 for demodulating a radio signal received through an antenna 1, an ID-ROM 4 for previously storing a paging number of the paging receiver, a paging number collator portion 5 for comparing and collating a paging number involved in a received radio signal and a paging number previously stored in the ID-ROM 4 with each other, a password storage portion 6 for previously storing a password for the: paging receiver, a password collator portion 7 for comparing and collating a password involved in a received message and a stored password with each other, a prohibition time storage portion 8 for storing the commencement time and completion time of a time zone when alarming of a cal7L and display of a message are prohibited, a clock portion 12 for generating a real time signal, a message storage portion 11 for storing a received message, 210740 -5an alarming portion 9 for generating a call signal for alarming, a display portion 10 for displaying a received message, and a control portion 3 for controlling the entire operation of the paging receiver.

The paging receiver includes on an operating panel a mode switching button SW1, a scroll button 512, and a setting button SW3 some of which are used to set the commencement time and completion time of the prohibition time zone.

The aforementioned password may be entered with the operation of these buttons.

The entered password can be confirmed by displaying it on the display portion 10.

Referring to FIGs. 2A and 2B, there are illustrated formats of call signals for the paging receivers.

FIG. 2A illustrates the format of a prior art call signal which comprises an ID (paging number) and a message, while FIG. 2B illustrates the format of a call signal for the paging receiver of the present invention which comprises a password in addition to an ID and a message, the password being of a numeral of four figures for example.

In the following, operation of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 3.

As understood from FIG. 1, a radio signal received through the antenna 1 is demodulated in the radio part 2. A paging signal involved in the demodulated data is collated with a paging number of itself stored in the ID-ROM 4 in 210~~40 -6the paging number collator portion 5, and if both numbers are coincident with each other, then a character-string involved in the received message is collated with a password stored in the password storage portion 6 in the password collator portion 7.

If coincidence between both passwords is attained, the alarming portion 9 informs a user of that fact.

The display portion 10 displays thereon the received message (telephone number of a calling party for example) at the same time of the alarming.

If the coincidence is not attained, however, it is judged whether or not the alarming is prohibited, and the alarming portion 9 executes the alarming only when the alarming is not prohibited.

The control portion 3 judges whether or not the alarming is prohibited by comparing the present time clocked in the clock portion 12 with the initiation time of the alarming and the prohibition completion time of the same, both previously set.

In the case where the alarming is not executed because of the alarming prohibition, the received message ~:s stored in the message storage part 11, and the alarming is executed when the alarming prohibition is released.

The control portion 3 operates as illustrated in FIG.

3 when the message is received.

As measured from FIG. 3, it is judged in step 5101 21~2'~4~ _7_ whether or not the password involved in the received message is coincident with the password stored in the passwaord storage portion 6, and if there is coincidence between the two passwords, then the alarming part 9 informs a user of that fact by alarming and the message is displayed on the display portion 10 in step 5102.

In the case where there is no coincidence between the two password, it is judged whether or not the present time is within the prohibition time zone of the alarming/display in step S103.

If the present time is not within the prohibition time zone, the alarming and the message display are effected in step 5104.

In contrast, if the same is within the prohibition time zone, the alarming and the message display are not effected in step 5105.

In this case, the received message is once stored in the message storage portion 1 in step 5106, and the alarming is effected after the completion of the prohibition time zone in step 5107.

It is noticed that with the arrival of the commencement time and completion time of the prohibition time zone, a short time ringing sound different from ordinary alarm may be issued for the alarming.

According to the present invention, as described above, only in thE~ case where a preset specific password is involved in a received message, alarming and display of a ~1~~'~4~ _8_ message are allowed, and when the specific password is different from a password inherent to a user, alarming and display of a message are only allowed outside a set proibition time zone while the alarming and the display of the message are prohibited within the prohibition time zone.

Accordingly, calling can be limited depending upon the time, and proper use of private and business calls is ensured for further convenient use of the paging receiver by carriers.

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