With the increasing requirements for individual telephone access as demand for modems, faxes and direct-dial work telephone numbers increases, telephone numbers are of necessity becoming longer and longer. This naturally is making it increasingly difficult to remember specific numbers. This is particularly disadvantageous to those advertising products or services which are accessed via a telephone, or which customers prefer to access via a telephone. Although this disadvantage is somewhat overcome if the advertiser is the owner of a distinctive number, there is only limited availability of such numbers. It still remains a fact that in places where people commonly see such advertisements e. g. while driving or waiting at a bus stop or station, then it is highly unlikely that they will have pen and paper handy in order to note down any telephone number of interest. Thus it is becoming less effective for providers of goods and services who are dependent on telephone customers to advertise their products in the standard ways.

It is an object of this invention to provide an alternative system of telephone connection which mitigates the aforementioned disadvantage.

In a first aspect this invention provides a telephone handset having a transmitter which is capable of transmitting a signal which is representative of a series of digits, a plurality of digit keys and a screen on which alphabetical characters may be displayed, wherein each character is selectable by depression of a respective digit key or a respective sequence of digit keys, characterised in that the handset has a memory which is arranged to store a sequence of digits depressed in spelling out a recipient's name and thereby to generate a series of digits coded by the

recipient's name and the transmitter is arranged such that, on activation, it transmits a signal which is representative of the series of digits coded by the recipient's name.

The phrase"coded by the recipient's name"is used herein to distinguish from the standard signal which is transmitted by a telephone on dialling a number. This standard signal is representative only of the digit sequence comprising an assigned telephone number. In this invention, the transmitted signal is still representative of a number, and the transformation from number to transmitted signal is made in the same way as for the prior art. However, in the present invention, the digit sequence itself is a coded representation of a name.

There is no need to adapt a standard mobile telephone layout to implement this invention. Mobile phones generally have an address book in which telephone numbers can be stored alongside names. Digit keys play a role in generating alphabetic characters which make up these names. For example, when the handset anticipates a name, keying the"2"digit key once represents an"a", twice a"b"and three times a"c". Similarly the"3" digit key can also generate a"d","e"or"f"depending on the number of keystrokes. A pause, of predetermined length, indicates that the key sequence for a particular letter is complete. Thus, a caller can simply key in the name of the recipient he wishes to contact in the same way as he would key in an entry to look up in his personal address book. As far as the caller is concerned therefore there is no further complication in using this invention. Similarly, the transmission itself is simply of a signal characteristic of a series of digits; this is exactly what a standard mobile phone will do when attempting to establish contact with a particular dialled number.

In a second aspect this invention provides a telephone network system for connecting a caller to a recipient, the recipient having been assigned a

standard telephone number, characterised in that the network is arranged to be capable of converting a signal received from a caller telephone, the received signal being representative of a series of digits coded by the recipient's name, into a signal representative of the standard telephone number of the recipient and thereby to connect the caller with the recipient over the telephone system.

This aspect of the invention provides a network system which assists in establishing a telephone connection between a caller and his intended recipient,-without requiring-that-the caller remembers, or has the facility to look up, a seemingly unconnected string of digits which comprise that recipient's telephone number. A name is far easier to remember than a long sequence of digits and this invention enables a connection to be made simply by entering the name of the recipient into the telephone handset.

Clearly this invention will be most useful if the recipient is a relatively well- known organisation. In this manner, the system is capable of being arranged such that merely remembering the name of the organisation concerned allows the caller to establish telephone contact. This greatly increases the efficacy of those advertising media which are only observed transiently by the public.

As an alternative to this second aspect, a telephone system may be established in which dummy telephone numbers are set up. When a call is made from the handset of this invention which results in transmission of a signal which is representative of the series of digits coded by the recipient's name, no conversion is made by the network and the call is directed, in the standard way, to a dummy telephone number which corresponds to the series of digits. Each recipient who desires to be contactable by this means, arranges for the dummy number which is reached by his characteristic series of digits to be set up with an active divert. This divert is set to redirect calls made to the dummy number to the recipient's standard telephone number.

It is preferred that the display screen of the handset is arranged to show the name of the recipient as it is keyed in. In this way the caller can read the name of the recipient whilst the telephone stores the information it needs (the representative number) in order to enable contact to be made.

In response to an indication to call the receiver, the caller telephone will then transmit the signal which it would have transmitted under normal operation had those digits stored in its memory comprised a standard telephone number.

In a third aspect, this invention provides a telephone system for connecting a caller to a recipient, the recipient having been assigned a standard telephone number, comprising a central network system and caller telephone, the caller telephone having a transmitter which, on activation, is capable of transmitting a signal which is representative of a series of digits and a handset of the type which has a plurality of digit keys and a screen on which alphabetical characters may be displayed, each character being selectable by depression of a respective digit key or a respective sequence of digit keys, characterised in that the network system is arranged such that it is capable of converting a signal received from the caller telephone which is representative of a series of digits coded by the recipient's name into a signal representative of the standard telephone number of the recipient and thereby to connect the caller with the recipient over the telephone system.

Preferably the name of the recipient which the system is arranged to convert is its internet address. Internet addresses, unlike telephone numbers, are highly representative of the domain name owner or his trademark. Furthermore as use of the internet becomes increasingly widespread domain name styles and formats are entering more and more into common usage. Advertisers can economise on text information placed on posters or other advertisements: one internet address will enable potential customers to contact a supplier either by telephone or over the

internet, whichever is preferred.

The telephone handset calling via the network is preferably arranged to transmit a precursor signal prior to transmission of the signal representative of the series of digits coded by the recipient's name in order to indicate that a non-standard telephone number follows. Accordingly the network is also preferably arranged to switch from a first state in which the received signal is treated as representative of a standard telephone number to a second state in which the received signal is treated as representative of a series of - digits coded by the recipient-'s name on receipt of a predetermined precursor signal. A notification that the precursor character/signal is to be transmitted can be provided to the caller handset in a number of ways. For example, either by access through a menu system or by keying in a particular key sequence.

Further variations are possible with menu access. Once the option has been selected and this form of non-standard number is anticipated, then use may be made of the capabilities of the sim card component of mobile phone handsets. The sim card may be arranged to add automatically the precursor character to the series of digits which are keyed in. Moreover, the sim card may also be programmed to display automatically"www."on the display screen and to add the corresponding representative digit series to the number which is dialled.

Use of the recipient's internet address in combination with a mobile phone sim card can provide further benefits. It is well known that there are a number of commonly-occurring letter combinations in internet addresses and the sim card can be programmed to accept abbreviated versions of these and replace the abbreviation with the full expression. For example, in the absence of menu selection,"w."can be used instead of"www." ; in Britain, a". c" could represent". com" and". cu",". co. uk", and so on.

The network capability for converting the signals is preferably provided by a stored look-up table which contains, for each recipient, the series of digits coded by its name and the corresponding standard telephone number of that recipient.

The caller handset may be arranged such that, on transmission of the series of digits, a differentiating signal is transmitted after each digit or digit sequence which is representative of a single alphabetical character. This helps the network overcome any ambiguity in decoding the digit sequence.

For example, if two names are similar but one contains"mm"in the same position as the second contains"n", then the representative digit sequences would both have"66"in this position. Whether such ambiguity needs to be resolved or not will depend upon the envisaged similarity of recipient names. Clearly, if the numbers of subscribers to this service increases, then the need for this feature to provide an effective connection also increases.

The telephone handset preferably has ten digit keys. This avoids the need for any adaptation of the usual keypad layout of a standard mobile phone and so'will aid its adoption for use in this invention.

Internet addresses invariably contain a dot (.) character within their string.

Whereas some makes of mobile phone are set so that the"1"digit key also represents a dot, comma or hash, others have no dot on the standard telephone keypad. If this latter type of phone handset is used and if internet addresses are to be input without adding extra keys, without lengthening typing times by requiring access to a character table and without changing the layout of the telephone, the caller telephone handset may be arranged to transmit a specific"dot"signal as representative of the dot in the internet address of the recipient. This signal is preferably indicated by depression of a characteristic key sequence. The hash (#) key is preferred as this requires only a single key press and of a key which is

already present on a standard telephone.

Alternatively, if changing the keypad design is acceptable, special keys can be added to the keypad in order to assist rapid typing of internet addresses.

In addition to a dot key, other key presses can be arranged to generate ". co",". com" and". uk". Clearly, the particular set of special characters assigned to a new key or keys will be country-dependent, but the principle is the same.

An embodiment-of. the-invention-will now-be described by way of example only and with reference to the accompanying drawing: Figure 1 is a schematic illustration of the telephone system of the invention.

In this Figure the telephone system, indicated generally by 10, is operated by a network provider, whose network system 12 is illustrated. A mobile phone 14 conforming to accepted standards of the industry, i. e. with numeric keypad 16 and display screen 18, communicates with the network maintained by the network provider. As is standard, calls from this mobile phone 14 are relayed via the network system 12 to a recipient 20 in accordance with the number dialled.

As is very well known, each active telephone has a unique identifying telephone number. In all telephone systems therefore a desired recipient is called by dialling the appropriate identifying number and the generated signal is routed by the telephone network (in whatever hardware form) to notify the intended recipient that the caller is trying to contact him. Modern telephones generate the call signal electronically. The telephone handset illustrated has 12 electronic keys which when depressed close an electrical circuit and the corresponding digit (or symbol in the case of two of the keys) is shown on the display screen 18. A sequence of numbers is keyed in and, on depressing the"call"button (not shown), the transmitter effectively

"dials"this number by transmitting a call signal characteristic of this number sequence via the network 12 and to the recipient 20, as identified by the unique number sequence.

Typically mobile phones such as 14 have at least 12 electronic keys: ten for the digits 0 to 9, one hash (#) and one star (*) key. Generally other keys are also present-a"call"key as noted above and other keys to operate the display. These vary from phone to phone and are not illustrated. This phone 14 also has an address book in which telephone numbers can be stored alongside names. To enable a name to be keyed in the digit keys can also function as alphabetical keys. Depressing a digit key once, twice, three or four times generates a particular letter of the alphabet, depending on which key is depressed. When pressing the same key repeatedly to select a letter, a pause, of predetermined length, indicates that the key sequence for that particular letter is complete.

In this embodiment of the invention a dialler can effectively call a receiver via its internet address. Unlike telephone numbers, domain names tend to be very characteristic of the web site owner. Thus, rather than dial a telephone number, the operator of this system will key in the domain name of the organisation (recipient) he wishes to contact. Two additional keys or special key sequences are incorporated. The first operates as a precursor character which indicates that this special form of telephone address will follow in place of the traditional telephone number and the second represents the dot (.) part of internet addresses. The precise form of these key sequences will depend on the code conventions of the country in which the system is operating. For example, although"www"would appear at first sight to be a sensible option for the precursor character, this corresponds to 999 on most telephones and so, in the UK, would place a call to the emergency services. Similarly the common"#"character is used as a precursor for international calls. A simple scheme which utilises the current standard telephone capabilities is to use the"*"as a precursor and

the"#"to represent the"."in an internet address.

It is not necessary however to have the telephone operate to a particular precursor character. Alternatively, the telephone could be put into a mode ready to receive the special form of telephone address by means of a menu system. Such menus are common in mobile phones and enable the caller to access facilities such as voicemail, a messaging service and address book as well as allowing certain user-selected options to be set. Once set in the mode for receiving the special address, the telephone itself is -arranged to automatically transmit a precursor-signal prior to transmission of the digital representation of the recipient's name.

On keying in the desired sequence the name of the internet address appears on the display screen e. g."patent. gov. uk". When the call button is depressed the phone set transmits a precursor signal, which in one embodiment corresponds to the precursor character, and then the number sequence which corresponds to the digit keys which are depressed in order to spell out"patent. gov. uk" i. e. *72833668#4666888#8855.

In addition to showing"patent. gov. uk" on the display, the phone also stores in memory the sequence of digits pressed. On pressing the"call"button, the digits are transmitted in sequence, separated, where necessary, by a character separator.

The character separator is another characteristic signal transmitted by the telephone in order to distinguish between an intra-character digit and an inter-character digit. The transmitted separator does not have to represent anything typed by the caller. In practice the caller uses pause lengths to differentiate between typing 66 to represent an"n"and 66 to represent "mm". However pause lengths cannot be practically incorporated into the transmitted signal in a digital system. The telephone is therefore arranged to emit a special signal to distinguish e. g. by using a single tone of

distinctive pitch to represent the end of a character sequence, without the need to change the standard keypad. It is unnecessary to distinguish at every sequence end. Clearly, when using a standard keypad, a change in digit necessarily means that the key sequence for the previous character is complete. Thus the telephone is more efficiently arranged only to emit the distinguishing signal when the key sequence is complete and the following digit is identical. Thus, for example, the signal would be emitted between the"666"sequence for"o"and the"6"sequence for"m"in calling an organisation with". com" in its address.

The transmitted signal, coding for the name of the organisation, is received by the network 12 in the usual way. The network 12 consults a database or look-up table in which organisations and their telephone numbers are stored. The database can be arranged to store either the names of the organisations or the incoming digit sequence. In the former case additional software would need to be included to transform the received digit sequence to an internet-type address. In the latter case, depending on the size of the database required, it may or may not be unnecessary to transmit any sort of inter-character separator. Since the digit key sequence representative of the recipient's name is stored in the look-up table, a problem will only arise if two names are produced by the same key sequence. This is unlikely to happen in English at the moment, although if the number of internet users increases in line with the current trend, smaller differences between different names will become significant.

Once the standard telephone number has been obtained by the network 12, the call is then routed to notify the appropriate recipient 20 in the standard way.

In this manner difficult to remember telephone numbers need not be used in advertisements. Simply advertise the internet address of the organisation and its services can be accessed by both internet users and those who prefer contact over the telephone.