Summary:
The '989 patent describes a portable electronic communication device with game software that simulates a virtual pet. The virtual pet is able to converse with a user who in turn is able to teach the pet new words. Attributes of the words are modified based upon the responses of a user to questions asked by the pet during conversation and stored in a database. For example, with reference to the figure above, the user might tell the pet that the word “Jane” is a “Human” (1 in the “Human” column) and not “Food” (0 in the column) and that the user really likes “Jane,” (with degree of 4 in the “Like” column). Next time, the friendly virtual pet may begin a conversation by saying something like “I just e-mailed Jane saying that you like her!” (after which the pet can learn a plethora of curses and swears from the user). This innovation may well give rise to various other incarnations, such as a virtual girlfriend that will only accept compliments, or a virtual gunner that will enlighten you with its knowledge of random subjects.

Exemplary Claim:
A communication apparatus between a user and an entertainment apparatus, the entertainment apparatus having at least a microprocessor, memory, display controller and means for inputting user commands, said communication apparatus comprising:

an electronic dictionary comprising words and associated status information related specifically to said words;

an alteration element to modify the status information of one or more words based on user interaction with said entertainment apparatus;

a sentence generator creating a sentence including said one or more words and based on said modified electronic dictionary word status information associated with said one or more words and adapted to a situation between a user and said entertainment apparatus, and

a sentence output element for outputting a sentence generated by the sentence generator to display as a message to a user.