1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a mobile phone having an infrared communication function, and in particular relates to a mobile phone which is capable of automatically switching between transmission and reception when exchanging data between electronic terminals by means of infrared communication.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recent years have seen the appearance of mobile phones which adopt IrDA (Infrared Data Association) standards to perform data communication over short distances using infrared rays, and various services using the IrDA standard are beginning to be developed. By means of the IrDA standard, for example, data can be exchanged between mobile phones. IrDA is an industry organization established in 1993 in order to implement technical standards for data communication over short distances using infrared rays, and also refers to the standards for infrared communication introduced by that organization; at present, specifications include version 1.0 specifications, for communication distances of up to 1 meter and communication speeds up to 115.2 kbps; version 1.1 specifications, for communication distances within 1 meter and communication speeds up to 4 Mbps; and version 1.2 specifications (low-power consumption), for communication distances within 0.2 m and communication speeds up to 115.2 kbps.
When for example profile information (name of the user himself, telephone number, e-mail address, and other information) and address books (registered user telephone numbers, mail addresses and similar) stored in a mobile phone are to be exchanged between mobile phones, infrared communications using IrDA standards are employed. First, user A on the initial transmission side selects data for transmission, and sets his mobile phone to transmission mode. At this time, user B on the initial reception side sets his mobile phone to reception mode. When user A on the initial transmission side performs a transmission operation, data is transmitted from the mobile phone of user A on the initial transmission side, and the transmitted data is received by the mobile phone of user B on the initial reception side.
Next, the initial transmission side and initial reception side are switched, and the same operation is repeated. That is, the initial transmission side becomes the reception side, and the initial reception side becomes the transmission side. Specifically, after receiving data from the mobile phone of user A on the initial transmission side, user B on the initial reception side, which has become the transition side, selects data for transmission, and sets his mobile phone to transmission mode. On the other hand, after the end of data transmission, user A on the initial transmission side, which has become the reception side, sets his mobile phone to the reception mode. Then, when user B on the initial reception side performs a transmission operation, data is transmitted from the mobile phone of user B on the initial reception side, and the transmitted data is received by the mobile phone of user A on the initial transmission side.
When data is exchanged between mobile phones in this way using infrared communications, (1) after communication of the form user A transmission→user B reception, it is then necessary to perform (2) communication of the form user B transmission→user A reception, and in order to exchange data between users A and B the users must alternate between transmission and reception, so that two communication operations must be performed.
Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2000-91980 discloses a mobile phone comprising an infrared communication function, which comprises communication mode switching means to switch the communication mode according to signals from the other-party system performing infrared communication.
As described above, in order to exchange data, user A performs an operation to transmit his own data, and after transmission is completed, performs an operation to receive data from user B. User B performs an operation to receive data from user A, and after reception is completed, must perform an operation to transmit his own data. That is, user operations are required once again during data exchange, so that some inconvenience is experienced in data exchange.
An object of this invention is to provide a mobile phone which, when performing data exchange between mobile phones using an infrared communication function, enables easier data exchange.