Method and apparatus pertaining to the dynamic handling of incoming calls

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9553966-B2
Application number	US-201213405822-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 27, 2012
Priority date	Feb 27, 2012
Publication date	Jan 24, 2017
Grant date	Jan 24, 2017

Abstract

A control circuit determines when a user of a corresponding portable communication device is presently driving a vehicle and then, in response to detecting this use state, automatically answer incoming calls and provide at least two contact options to the caller. One of these contact options can comprise the option to speak with the user during this call. Another of these contact options can comprise recording a voice message for the user and discontinuing the incoming call without the caller speaking with the user. The control circuit can determine whether the user is presently driving a vehicle by relying upon a direct acknowledgement of the user and/or by indirect means.

First claim

We claim:

1. An apparatus comprising:
a wireless transceiver;
a control circuit operably coupled to the wireless transceiver and configured to:
determine that a user of the apparatus is presently driving a vehicle, at least in part, by detecting direct acknowledgement of driving a vehicle by the user;
in response to an incoming call from a caller via the wireless transceiver while the user is driving the vehicle, automatically answering the incoming call to provide at least two contact options to the caller.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein at least one of the contact options is to speak with the user during this call.

3. The apparatus of claim 2 wherein at least one of the contact options is to record a voice message for the user.

4. The apparatus of claim 3 wherein the contact option to record a voice message for the user includes discontinuing the incoming call without speaking with the user.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising:
a user interface that operably couples to the control circuit;
and wherein the control circuit is configured to detect the direct acknowledgment via the user interface.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the control circuit is configured to determine that the user is presently driving a vehicle, at least in part, by indirectly detecting that the user is presently driving a vehicle.

7. The apparatus of claim 6 wherein the control circuit is configured to indirectly detect that the user is presently driving a vehicle by using data provided by at least one of:
a global positioning system receiver;
at least one accelerometer;
the vehicle.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the apparatus comprises a portable communications device.

9. A method comprising:
at a control circuit for a portable communications device:
detecting direct acknowledgement of driving a vehicle by a user of the portable communications device;
determining that the user of the portable communications device is presently driving the vehicle, at least in part, by the detecting;
in response to an incoming call from a caller while the user is driving the vehicle, automatically answering the incoming call to provide at least two contact options to the caller.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein at least one of the contact options is to speak with the user during this call.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein at least one of the contact options is to record a voice message for the user.

12. The method of claim 9 wherein determining that the user is presently driving a vehicle comprises, at least in part, indirectly detecting that the user is presently driving a vehicle.

13. The method of claim 9 further comprising:
determining whether a field of a contact associated with the caller in a contact list of the portable communications device indicates the caller is precluded from being provided a speak-now contact option as one of the at least two contact options.

14. A non-transitory computer storage medium having instructions stored therein, which instructions, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:
detect direct acknowledgement of driving a vehicle by a user of the processor,
determine that the user of the processor is presently driving the vehicle, at least in part, by the detecting;
in response to an incoming call from a caller via the wireless transceiver while the user is driving the vehicle, automatically answering the incoming call to provide at least two contact options to the caller, wherein at least one of the contact options is to speak with the user during this call and another of the contact options is to record a voice message for the user.

15. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising a contact list including a field that indicates whether individual contacts of the contact list can be provided with a speak-now contact option as one of the at least two contact options in response to receiving an incoming call from the individual contacts of the contact list.

Assignees

• Mori Robert Felice
• Yurkonis Philip Gabriel
• Blackberry Ltd

Inventors

• Mori Robert Felice
• Yurkonis Philip Gabriel

Classifications

• H04M3/527

  Centralised call answering arrangements not requiring operator intervention · CPC title

• H04M3/4365

  based on information specified by the calling party, e.g. priority or subject · CPC title

• H04M3/533

  Voice mail systems · CPC title

• H04W68/005

  Transmission of information for alerting of incoming communication · CPC title

• H04M1/65

  Recording arrangements {for recording a message from the calling party (in the exchange H04M3/50)} · CPC title