Telephone Indicator

This invention relates to an indicator particularly useful for a multiline telephone.

Key telephone sets or other telephone sets having access to a plurality of lines typically utilize a row or rows of pushbuttons which, when depressed, give the telephone user access to a telephone line associated with the pushbutton. The pushbutton usually is transparent or translucent, and a light which illuminates the pushbutton provides an indication of the status of the line.

For example, when a telephone is off hook with a particular pushbutton being depressed, the pushbutton lights up. Should a call be incoming on one of the lines, whether the pushbutton is depressed or not, conventionally the pushbutton light flashes at a slow rate. Should a particular line be placed on hold, conventionally the pushbutton light flashes rapidly. Accordingly the state of the local telephone line, and notice of incoming calls is provided to the telephone user.

With the advent of more sophisticated telephone systems, information concerning the status of the called line can be provided to the calling party. The present invention provides a status indicator which indicates clearly and with minimal possibility of misinterpretation the status of both the calling and called lines. The status of both the calling and called lines, whether idle, busy or on hold is provided to the calling party, as well as indication of ringing to the user's telephone. Thus the local telephone user obtains an indication of the exact status of the line to which he is dialing, giving him a more flexible and useful telephone instrument. Further, the form of indication is easily learned and psychologically clear and definite, whereby the possibility of misinterpretation of the status of the calling party and the called party's lines is minimized.

In general, the present invention is a telephone line status indicator structure comprising a first indicator enclosed within a second for displaying by a shade or color the status of a called line, and a second indicator at least partly surrounding the first for partly displaying the first for displaying by shade or color with the second indicator the status of the calling line, whereby a party observing the indicator obtains simultaneous indication of the status of the calling and the called lines.

Preferably the first indicator is a circle, enclosed within the second indicator which is a square, both being elements of a liquid crystal display. Each square indicator can be located next to a line access pushbutton with which it is associated.

It should be understood that while the description below refers to indications for a key telephone system, it can be used in a PABX system, at an operator's console, or shown as a graphic on a cathode ray tube or other display.

A better understanding of the invention will be obtained by reference to the detailed description below, with reference to the following drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 illustrates the indicators as used on a telephone set,

FIG. 1A illustrates various indicator layouts according to the invention,

FIG. 2 illustrates the indicator coding scheme,

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of a series of indicators according to the preferred form of the invention, and

FIG. 3A is a layout of the preferred form of an indicator.

FIG. 1 shows a perspective of a portion of a telephone set according to a preferred form of the invention in which the indicators are used. Pushbuttons 1, which connect the telephone to various lines are located in a column or columns at one side of the telephone set, each being associated with an indicator structure 2. Several of the indicator structures are shown in FIG. 1 with different indications, the meaning of which will be described below. In the top indicator, a shaded or dark square surrounds a light or transparent circle; in the second indicator structure the shades are reversed. In the third indicator structure the entire square is dark or shaded and in the fourth the reverse, light or transparent.

According to the preferred form of the invention, a first indicator, such as the circle, is surrounded by a second indicator, such as the square. The first indicator displays a first shade in response to one status of a calling or called party line and a second shade in response to its other status. It is preferred, however, that the first indicator should display a shade in response to the status of the called party line, rather than of the calling party line.

The second, square indicator, which at least partly surrounds the first indicator displays a third shade in response to one status of the other called or calling party lines, and a fourth shade in response to another status of that line. Preferably the second indicator displays the status of the calling party line.

To simplify the indications for the user, it is preferred that the first and third shades should be the same, and the second and fourth shades should be the same, and that the first and second shades should be opposite shades of each other. However, rather than opposite shades, color coding can be used. By opposite shades, it does not mean, in the patent specification, that opposite colors or a color chart or equivalent should necessarily be used although they could be, but merely that dark is opposite shade than light and vice versa.

It is preferred that liquid crystal displays should be used. Consequently the first and second, or third and fourth shades can be solid (or dark) and transparent (or light) respectively.

Further, rather than using a circle surrounded by a square, the first indicator could be of some other shape, i.e. in the form of a bell, a bar extending part way or completely across the square, a centrally located triangle or a triangle extending to a corner or the top of the square, etc. The square could be substituted by a circle, the first indicator can be a bar extending thereacross, etc. Some variations of the structure are shown in FIG. 1A. In this Figure, the indicator structure is comprised of first indicator 3 and second indicator 4. It is intended herein that the first indicator should be enclosed within a second, but this enclosure does not mean full enclosure. The term "enclosed within" is intended to mean within the perceived boundary; i.e., the perceived boundary of the top row of indicators in FIG. 1A is square or rectangular, while the perceived boundary of the second row of indicators in FIG. 1A is circular, oval shape or the like. Consequently while the first indicator 3 in the upper right hand structure shown in FIG. 1A appears to be external to the second indicator 4, it is intended by the definition of the enclosure herein that it should be within the rectangular boundary of the second indicator 4.

While it was noted above the color can be used to indicate telephone line status, it will be understood that a single shade, e.g. black or blue and its opposite shade of white or transparency to a light or contrasting color background would be least expensive in use. FIG. 2 illustrates the preferred form of indicator coding scheme.

According to this embodiment, the shade of both first and second indicators, within the boundary of the second indicator should depict the status of the calling or local telephone line when a call is not underway to another party. Looking at the third, fourth and fifth rows of indicators in FIG. 2, if the local line is busy, the entire area within the boundary of the second indicator is uniformly shaded dark.

If the local line is on hold, the entire area within the boundary of the second indicator flashes alternatively dark and light, as in the fourth row of indicators.

Assuming that the local line is idle (the telephone is on-hook), the entire area within the boundary of the second indicator is light shade, as shown in the fifth row of FIG. 2.

Assuming that another telephone set which has been called on one of the lines appearing on the local telephone set is busy, the first indicator 3 shows constantly dark within the boundary of the light second indicator, as shown in the first row in FIG. 2. Assuming that the other telephone set has placed its line on hold, the first indicator 3 flashes as shown in the second row.

A user thus easily distinguishes between the status of his telephone set and the status of other telephone sets connected to the same line. The status of the line to which his telephone set is connected shows on his indicator as a full block of shade within the boundaries of the second indicator, i.e., as shown in the third, fourth, and fifth rows of FIG. 2. The status of another telephone set to which a call is switched via the same line is easily distinguished by the shade of flashing shade of the smaller first indicator 3.

The present indicator thus provides substantially more information to the telephone user than prior art key telephone line status indicators; a user could not previously tell whether a line is being held from his telephone or from another telephone which has access to the same line, which he now can distinguish.

The indication of ringing to a particular line is shown in the bottom row of FIG. 2. In this case the first and second indicators show different or opposite shades, and simultaneously flash in reverse shades. This has been found to be highly distinctive, and cannot be misinterpreted as a held line, as can prior art key telephone illuminated buttons.

Returning now to FIG. 1, it is clear that the two lines at the bottom of the row are idle, the third line from the bottom is locally busy, the second line from the top is busy at the called line or, if flashing, is on hold at another telephone connected to that line, and the line at the top of the row is in the midst of flashing due to an incoming call ringing the telephone.

Of course other signals could be used, such as indicating busy stations of a called line by flashing the associated indicator at a rate distinguishing from ringing or a held line.

As noted earlier, it is preferred that the indicators should be formed of liquid crystal display elements of well-known construction. For example, one is shown in FIG. 3 comprised of an insulating glass substrate 5 covered by an insulating overlay 6, and having an internal transparent conductor surface of well known form facing the substrate 5. A backplane covered by electrically polymerizable material is located over the glass substrate in a form shown in FIG. 3A. This conductive backplane, using the indicator structure described as being preferred, is formed of a circular conductor 7 surrounded by a rectangular boundary conductor 8 which is gapped from conductor 7 and provides an insulating access gap for a conductor to circular conductor 7. Since the operation and driving circuits for liquid crystal displays are well known, they will not be described in further detail herein.

The present invention has been found to provide a considerable advancement in the structure of multi-line telephones, and has been found to be substantially more "user friendly" than prior art line indicators. Further, since the invention is not restricted to using single shades, with the use of various shades, accessories, circuitry, and with the appropriate liquid crystal display structure, special colors can be illuminated to indicate the meaning of urgency, normalcy, colors matching the color of the telephone set, etc. Indeed, the form of the indicator can be that of the logo of the telephone company or the company using the telephones.

While the above description relates to a preferred and other embodiments, it will be recognized that further embodiments or variations may be designed using the principles described herein. All are considered to be within the sphere and scope of the invention as defined in the claims appended hereto.