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Controlling displayControlling display description/claimsThe Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20070176918, Controlling display. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0001] The present invention concerns displays of electronic devices, specifically controlling displays of electronic devices BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] Displays have been incorporated to electronic devices to improve the usability of the devices. For example, presently ordinary mobile stations incorporate a display device, on which the user can monitor the success of keying in a telephone number and by using which he/she can edit the telephone number being keyed in. In tune with the evolution of mobile stations they have been used for communicating by short messages and in future mobile station also by transferring moving images. For these uses it would be preferable for the display of a mobile station to be large so that it would be easy to recognise textual information and/or images. The size of new mobile stations has been perpetually decreasing to improve portability while the evolution of their battery technology and energy maintenance has enabled a stretching of their standby-times even to weeks. With the future mobile station models the need for large amounts of processing required by manipulation of moving images along with an increase in display size and furthermore the transition from passive matrix displays to colour active matrix displays of better quality will significantly increase the power consumption of mobile stations and decrease their standby-time. [0003] The power consumption of the liquid crystal displays now used in mobile stations, as well as that of emission displays being designed, increases relatively to their size. Thus a larger display needed to provide a larger picture area unavoidably consumes more energy and shortens the stand-by time of the mobile station. For this reason in some mobile stations attempts have been made to circumvent this problem by e.g. turning power off from the display. On the other hand, in this case it is impossible to show the user useful information, like strength of field or battery status, by using the display. To circumvent this problem, Panasonic's Pinocchio PHS mobile station in fact carries two displays, a large r display for using e.g. to read and write text, when the mobile station is in use, and a small display to show status information when the mobile station is in standby mode. However, this solution is space-consuming and more expensive and slower to assemble than a single-display solution due to installation of separate components. One other problem caused by displaying the status information is the marks left on the display by years of displaying same data on same place, which marks can interfere with reading the text on the display. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION [0004] Now an energy-saving display control method and an electronic device exploiting this method have been invented. The invention is based on the use of new, so-called partitionable or partially powerless coupleable display elements in a device, in which only a part of the display device is active during stand-by mode to present information useful to the user and rest of the display element is switched off to decrease the amount of energy used by the display element. [0005] Here a display element is defined to mean an element dedicated for forming a display, which element can present several non-interdependent pixels, which pixels in turn have a common display surface. The element can be e.g. a liquid crystal display element, which comprises a group of controllable display dots and a transparent cover common to all of these dots, through which cover the dots are visible. [0006] In a method and device according to a first embodiment of the present invention a part of the display element is switched off and only a part of the display element is used to present a certain amount of information. Where a larger display area is needed to present a larger amount of information at one time, a larger part of the display element or the entire display element can be activated. [0007] In a method and device according to a second embodiment of the present invention an initiating row of the display element, beginning at which the use of the display of a certain part is desired, is selected from the display element, and the part of the display element surrounding the selected part is switched off, when the display is used in stand-by mode to present a certain amount of information. Alternatively, a finishing row of the display element can be selected, up to which the use of the display element is desired and the part of the display element surrounding the selected part is switched off, when the display is used in stand-by mode to present a certain amount of information. When a larger display area is needed to present a larger amount of information, a larger part of the display element or the whole display element can be activated. [0008] In a method and electronic device according to a third embodiment of the present invention, an initiating row of the display element used, beginning at which the use of the display of a certain part is desired, is selected from the display element and the part of the display element surrounded the selected part is switched off, when the display is used in stand-by mode to present a certain amount of information. In order to avoid the appearing of permanent marks to the display element, the used part of the display element is changed, so that the same part of the display element is not constantly used to display the same information. The changes in position can be realised e.g. by moving the currently used zone of the display element to a certain direction by certain steps (e.g. up, down, to the side or diagonally), the next position is randomly selected, or the next position is selected in some other way. When a larger display area is needed to present a larger amount of information, a larger part of the display element or the whole display element can be activated. [0009] An electronic device, which comprises a display element to present information, is characterised in that [0010] said display element has two modes, a full-screen mode to use the entire display element to display a first information and a partial screen mode to use a first part in which partial screen mode a second part of the display element is switched off; and that the device comprises [0011] means for switching the device into energy conservation mode by switching the display element to said partial screen mode; and [0012] means for controlling the display element during energy conservation mode to display information on said first part. [0013] A method according to the present invention, for decreasing the energy consumption of an electronic device, is characterised in that [0014] a first part of the display element is used and a second part of the display element is switched off to conserve energy; and [0015] information is presented on the first part of the display element BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS [0016] The present invention is explained in detail in the following by referring to the enclosed drawings, in which [0017] FIG. 1 presents a view on a display of a mobile station according to prior art, when the mobile station is in a stand-by mode; [0018] FIG. 2 presents a view on a display of a mobile station according to the present invention, when the mobile station is in a stand-by mode; [0019] FIG. 3 presents the structure of a display module of a mobile station according to a first embodiment of the present invention and its coupling to other electronics of a mobile station. DETAILED DESCRIPTION Continue reading about Controlling display... Full patent description for Controlling display Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims Click on the above for other options relating to this Controlling display patent application. ###  How KEYWORD MONITOR works... a FREE service from FreshPatents1. Sign up (takes 30 seconds). 2. Fill in the keywords to be monitored. 3. Each week you receive an email with patent applications related to your keywords. Start now! - Receive info on patent apps like Controlling display or other areas of interest. ### Previous Patent Application: Flat-panel display devices and manufacturing method therefor Next Patent Application: Interface Industry Class: Computer graphics processing, operator interface processing, and selective visual display systems ### FreshPatents.com Support Thank you for viewing the Controlling display patent info. 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