Palm files for a PRIORITY-BASED PHONE CALL FILTERING Patent

The phone patent was actually filed in 2007, so this goes to show you how long Palm has been working on the Palm WebOS.

As decribed in the patent filing: A mobile phone filters phone calls based on priority. The mobile phone determines a call priority of an incoming phone call based on the caller's telephone number. The mobile phone also determines a threshold priority for the current time period based on a priority schedule. The mobile phone compares the call priority with the threshold priority to determine whether to block the incoming call. If the mobile phone blocks the incoming phone call, it may transmit a message to the caller suggesting a time for the caller to make the phone call again.

Comments

[brian]

I don't see what caller priority has to do with webos..but whatever.

[nobel]

That is why you don't code for Palm loser.

[skraz]

[offtopic]
Are we doing anything about the horrible spam on the forums? :(
[/offtopic]

[mjh]

I'm all in favor of getting the pre out the door. And I like the idea of having some patents to defend against stupid patent lawsuits. But seriously, filtering is a common tool used in lots of other technology, with email being the primary example that comes to mind. How is it particularly innovative to take a common tool (filtering) and put it on something else? How can this be considered anything other than an amazingly obvious thing to do?

[Vic]

I'm actually fairly impressed with this concept. It's really one of those "why didn't I think of that" type of patents that I think will ultimately become standard in cell phones.

As a graduating senior, I cannot count how many times I sat in class with my phone on silent next to the door waiting for employer calls for interviews. What a great way to filter these calls, and obviously business owners who know what customers should be able to reach them at any time versus just business hours.

Clearly the integration of contacts to the calendar to the phone is going to be superb.

[YG]

check out this Pre survey
http://www.predictify.com/q/how-many-units-will-the-palm-pre-sell-in-2009

[AB]

So, the implication is that WebOS is the first Palm recipient of this filtering technique? Has that been one of the advertised features?

I'm not sure I understand the relationship between the patent-filing date and the start of WebOS development.