Alert signal control using message priority
OwnerGary Stephen Shusterinventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An electronic communication system provides text or voice messages to remote receiving devices, such as cell phones or PDAs. The receiving devices include a function for determining a message priority, prior to providing any audible alert signal indicating that the message is received. If an incoming message has a priority that is lower than a necessary threshold, the function prevents the audible alert signal from being generated at the time the message is received.
Claims20
A portable messaging device, comprising:
- a wireless receiver;
- a processor coupled to the wireless receiver;
- an audio transducer coupled to the processor, for providing audible alert signaling in response to incoming messages;
- a memory coupled to the processor;
- the memory holding program instructions that when operated by the processor, cause the portable messaging device to obtain message priority information from incoming messages, and control an audible feature of the audible alert signaling based at least in part on the priority information.
A method comprising:
- receiving an incoming wireless message, by the messaging device;
- reading a priority level assigned to the incoming message;
- and
- controlling emission of an audible alert signal from the portable messaging device in response to the priority level, wherein an audible feature of the audible alert signal is based on at least in part on the priority level.
A non-transitory computer-readable medium encoded with instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause a portable wireless device to:
- receive an incoming wireless message, by the messaging device;
- read a priority level assigned to the incoming message;
- and
- control emission of an audible alert signal from the portable messaging device in response to the priority level, wherein an audible feature of the audible alert signal is based on at least in part on the priority level.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.