Patent Application
20060019645
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the use of cell phones and/or other BLUETOOTH™ enabled devices within establishments, vehicles and locations that have rules about the use of such devices.
2. Background of Related Art
No one can dispute the usefulness and convenience of wireless telephones (i.e., cell phones). They have become an everyday convenience for many people, and are often carried around with a person as they move about throughout the day.
With the proliferation of cellular telephones, especially cell phone models which incorporate cameras, there are growing concerns about appropriate usage. For instance, cameras raise an issue about invasion of privacy due to indiscrete use of the camera to take pictures in inappropriate places. Other concerns relate to public annoyances caused by cell phones ringing. Besides social issues, safety issues have been raised by the use of cell phones in certain limited circumstances, e.g., while in an airplane or in a hospital.
For instance, in the United States federal regulations have been enacted that require people with cell phones to turn them off while in an airborne airplane, as it has been determined that cell phone usage may interfere with the operation of the airplane and/or its communications. Passengers comply with such regulations, but may nevertheless inadvertently forget to turn a cell phone off, or even forget that an active cell phone is in their purse, etc. There are currently no devices in airplanes to sniff out and identify cell phones that remain turned on during flight to ensure compliance with the regulations.
In an attempt to dispel some fears of innocent bystanders, many establishments have posted rules regarding usage of such cellular telephones. For instance, many health clubs and spas do not permit use of wireless devices with cameras. To enforce such rules, health clubs often have a large, prominent sign placed in an entranceway to alert and remind users that they are not permitted to use cell phones with a camera while on the premises, or for that matter a camera at all. There are rarely officials in such establishments that monitor prohibited use of wireless devices, much less officials with the authority or capacity to stop unauthorized usage once discovered. So, non-usage of such camera-capable cell phones and other devices is largely voluntary, based on the honor system, and hopefully adhered to.
There is a need for an improved technique to easily and reliably prevent unauthorized usage modes of wireless devices in given establishments, locales, vehicles, etc.
In accordance with the principles of the present invention, a communications protocol for enforcing usage rules of a wireless device comprises establishing at least one rule relating to an action to be forcibly applied to a wireless device. At least one rule is wirelessly transmitted to the wireless device when the wireless device enters a physical area to which the usage rule applies. The at least one rule relates to an operational parameter of the wireless device without allowing a user of the wireless device to override the at least one rule.
A method of implementing a mandatory usage rule for operation of a wireless device in accordance with another aspect of the present invention comprises establishing a wireless link to receive at least one rule relating to operation of at least one feature of the wireless device when the wireless device enters a physical area to which the usage rule applies. An instruction contained by the at least one rule in the wireless device is automatically implemented. The at least one rule relates to an operational parameter of the wireless device without allowing a user of the wireless device to override the at least one rule.
Features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following description with reference to the drawings, in which:
The present invention incorporates a set of usage rules that operates in conjunction with hardware which disables particular features of a wireless device (e.g., audible ringing, use of camera, etc.), or which forcibly powers down or otherwise disables an electronic device, based upon the presence of the electronic device in an area with restricted use rules. Thus, enablement of relevant features of a wireless device (e.g., cell phone) is restricted based on the presence of the wireless device in a predefined location.
In accordance with the principles of the present invention, a “Rules Enabled” cell phone or other wireless device may be safely taken into sensitive areas such as hospitals, movie theatres, etc. In locations where audible ringing is an annoyance, the cell phone configuration will be automatically affected. For instance, audible ringing may be disabled (or, alternatively, silent ringing such as vibration may be forcibly enabled.) Similarly, camera functionality may be disabled when entering given establishments that prohibit use of such devices, e.g., health clubs, spas, or corporate offices to prevent industrial espionage, etc.
In particular, as shown in
In operation, an appropriate transmitted device, referred to herein as a ‘rules transmitter’ or ‘rules enforcer transceiver’ 150, is placed near entrances and/or exits and throughout a given establishment to be protected by such rules. This allows and dis-allows relevant handset features of the cell phone based on the particular site and location within a site, and on a user specific basis.
Such ‘rules’ transmitter 150 may be based on RF, BLUETOOTH™, infrared, etc. technologies depending upon the region to cover. As such, the relevant wireless devices are equipped with an appropriate matching receiver also based on RF, BLUETOOTH™, infrared, etc. technologies.
In the given example, the rules enforcer transceiver 150 acts as a master, and each of the wireless communications devices 100a-100d establish a piconet network virtual link with the rules enforcer transceiver 150.
For instance, a rule to “power down” may be associated with cell phones that come into the network including the rules enforcer transceiver 150, as shown by the first entry in the table 207.
In an exemplary second entry in the table 207 shown in
All devices of a type may be affected, or qualifications may be applied. For instance, all cell phones may be instructed to power down with a single rule. Alternatively, only cell phones including a camera may be instructed to power down, while cell phones without a camera may be permitted to continue operating, i.e., have no rule applied to them.
In a third entry of table 207, pagers have a rule which forcibly causes them to enter a silent mode (e.g., no audible beeping, just vibration).
In a fourth entry, ‘other devices’, i.e., devices which are not otherwise represented in the table 207, are instructed to power down.
In a fifth entry of table 207, qualifications may be applied to any/all devices. For instance, devices which carry identifications associated with state or government officials (e.g., police, military, fire department, etc.) may also receive a rule that cancels any other rule. Thus, it is possible that some rules may trump other rules.
As exemplified in
Rules from the rules enforcer transceiver 150 are mandatory to the relevant wireless phones 100a-100d, and thus can be considered to ‘forcibly’ cause the desired action, be it power down, change of mode, disablement of a particular feature, etc.
In particular, as shown in
Also shown in
The rules receiver receives the site and user specific rules, then appropriately disables certain features of the wireless device (e.g., disables audible ringing, disables use of the camera, etc.) The particular rule or set of usage ‘rules’ for the various features of an affected BLUETOOTH™ enabled device (e.g., a BLUETOOTH™ capable cell phone) are developed based on the particular features offered.
In particular, as shown in step 402 of
In step 404, a link is established between the wireless device and the rules enforcer transceiver 150, a BLUETOOTH™ piconet in the given example but not limited to Bluetooth™.
In step 406, device information is optionally exchanged with the rules enforcer transceiver such that the device type can be determined (e.g., whether the wireless device is a cell phone, PDA, pager, Smartphone, etc.)
In step 408, the rules enforcer transceiver 150 obtains the relevant rules to the type device, preferably combines the same into consistent rules, and then transmits the rule(s) to the wireless device.
In step 409, having received one or more rules from the rules enforcer transceiver 150, the instructions of the received rules are automatically, forcibly carried out, whether or not the user of the wireless device agrees.
In particular, as shown in
In step 504, upon receipt of the rule(s), the receiving wireless device 100 automatically initiates the requested action. While the wireless device 100 may warn of the impending action using, e.g., a display, the user of the wireless device is preferably not allowed to override the particular action, perhaps with the exception of allowing the user to manually power down the wireless device.
In one embodiment, the presence of a ‘rules’ signal and a base station causes the handset to operate based on the given site specific rules. In the absence of a rules signal, the wireless handset (e.g., cell phone) will resume normal operation.
Thus, preferably, a repeated transmission of the rules from the rules enforcer transceiver 150 may allow affected wireless devices to automatically recover from the forcible action after a given time out. As one example of a technique to implement this scenario, as shown in step 506, a rule timeout timer may be set.
In step 508, the timer is monitored to determine if the rule timeout timer has expired.
In step 510, the wireless device looks for retransmission of the relevant rule. If no retransmission is available, then the wireless device may be allowed to re-enter unrestricted use within the premises.
In particular, as shown in step 602 of
In step 604, a power down is automatically (i.e., forcibly) initiated in the relevant wireless device, e.g., in a BLUETOOTH™ enabled device.
While disclosed and described with respect to wireless devices in general, and BLUETOOH™ capable cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), pagers and email devices in particular, the present invention has applicability to many other portable electronic devices. Also, while BLUETOOTH™ piconet protocol is described, other short range wireless protocols may be used as the rules transmission mechanism, e.g., ZIGBEE™.
While the invention has been described with reference to the exemplary preferred embodiments thereof, those skilled in the art will be able to make various modifications to the described embodiments of the invention without departing from the true spirit and scope of the invention.
