Touch Sensitive Display Having Tactile Structures

• US 20080055255A1
• Filed: 08/30/2006
• Published: 03/06/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/30/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Malikie Innovations Limited (Key Patent Innovations Limited)
• Original Assignee: Research In Motion Limited (Blackberry Limited)
• Inventors: Griffin, Jason T.
• Granted Patent: US 8,098,232 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/173
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1626 with a single-body enclosure integrating a flat display, e.g. Personal Digital Assistants [PDAs]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1643 the display being associated to a digitizer, e.g. laptops that can be used as penpads details related to the relative motion of the display enclosure with respect to the body enclosure, e.g. to move between laptop and tablet PC configuration G06F1/1615
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04809 Textured surface identifying touch areas, e.g. overlay structure for a virtual keyboard
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0219 Special purpose keyboards
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0234 using switches operable in different directions
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/041 Digitisers, e.g. for touch screens or touch pads, characterised by the transducing means
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04886 by partitioning the display area of the touch-screen or the surface of the digitising tablet into independently controllable areas, e.g. virtual keyboards or menus
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/23 Construction or mounting of dials or of equivalent devices; Means for facilitating the use thereof by improving visibility H04M1/22
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/22 including a touch pad, a touch sensor or a touch detector

Abstract

An improved handheld electronic device has a touch sensitive display which comprises a number of elongated tactile structures that are haptically detectable by a user. Various routines executable on the handheld electronic device can cause visual elements to be output in various predetermined arrangements with respect to the arrangement of the tactile structures in order to facilitate input.

Claims

1. An electronic device comprising:

a touch sensitive display; and

a processor apparatus;

the touch sensitive display comprising;

a visual output portion structured to receive output signals from the processor apparatus and to provide visual output,

an input portion structured to provide input to the processor apparatus responsive to touch actuation by a user, and

a number of tactile structures that are haptically detectable by the user and are positioned in a particular arrangement; and

the processor apparatus comprising a processor and a memory and being structured to provide to the visual output portion a number of output signals that cause the visual output portion to display a plurality of visual elements that are positioned in a predetermined arrangement with respect to the particular arrangement of the tactile structures.

2. The electronic device of claim 1 wherein at least some of the tactile structures overlie the visual output portion.

3. The electronic device of claim 2 wherein at least some of the tactile structures are disposed on an outer surface of the touch sensitive display.

4. The electronic device of claim 2 wherein at least some of the tactile structures are formed of a translucent material.

5. The electronic device of claim 2 wherein the touch sensitive display comprises a translucent base overlying the visual output portion, and wherein at least some of the tactile structures are protuberances extending away from the base.

6. The electronic device of claim 5 wherein at least a portion of the base is substantially planar, and wherein at least some of the protuberances are elongated in a direction generally parallel with the at least portion of the base.

7. The electronic device of claim 2 wherein at least some of the tactile structures overlie at least some of the visual elements.

8. The electronic device of claim 7 wherein an input zone of the input portion extends between a location spaced away from one side of a tactile structure that overlies at least a first visual element and a location spaced away from another side of said tactile structure.

9. The electronic device of claim 1 wherein at least some of the tactile structures are elongated and oriented generally parallel with one another.

10. The electronic device of claim 9 wherein at least some of the visual elements are arranged in a number of rows having one pitch and a number of columns having another pitch, the at least some of the tactile structures being oriented generally parallel with the one of the number of rows and the number of columns having the closer pitch.

11. The electronic device of claim 10 wherein at least some of the tactile structures are one of:

disposed between adjacent ones of said one of the number of rows and the number of columns, and

disposed in a position overlying ones of said one of the number of rows and the number of columns.

12. The electronic device of claim 9 wherein at least some of the visual elements are characters of an alphabet, and wherein the predetermined arrangement of the characters is that of a keyboard comprising the characters disposed in a plurality of rows and a plurality of columns, the columns being arranged such that at least some of the tactile structures are disposed coincident with at least some of the columns.

13. The electronic device of claim 9 wherein at least some of the tactile structures that are elongated each comprise at least one of:

at least a first tactile element that is elongated in a direction of elongation of the tactile structure, and

a plurality of tactile elements disposed adjacent one another along the direction of elongation of the tactile structure.

14. The electronic device of claim 9 wherein the memory has a number of routines stored therein that are executable on the processor, wherein the processor apparatus is structured to provide to the visual output portion as at least a portion of the number of output signals a first output signal that causes the visual output portion to display as a first output a first set of visual elements in a first predetermined arrangement with respect to the particular arrangement of the tactile structures when a first routine is executed on the processor, and wherein the processor apparatus is structured to provide to the visual output portion as at least a portion of the number of output signals a second output signal that causes the visual output portion to display as a second output a second set of visual elements in a second predetermined arrangement with respect to the particular arrangement of the tactile structures when a second routine is executed on the processor, first and second outputs being different.

15. The electronic device of claim 9 wherein the plurality of visual elements comprise a number of elongated bars coincident with a number of the tactile structures.

16. The electronic device of claim 15 wherein the number of elongated bars comprise a pair of elongated bars coincident with a parallel pair of the tactile structures, at least a first tactile structure being disposed parallel with and between the pair of tactile structures.

17. The electronic device of claim 16 wherein the memory has a number of routines stored therein that are executable on the processor, and wherein a pair of the tactile structures are disposed parallel with and between the pair of elongated bars, a first input zone of the input portion being disposed adjacent one of the elongated bars of the pair of elongated bars, a second input zone of the input portion being disposed adjacent the other of the elongated bars of the pair of elongated bars, and a third input zone of the input portion being disposed between the pair of tactile structures, an input routine being structured to:

ignore in certain circumstances input resulting from actuation of the first input zone,

ignore in certain circumstances input resulting from actuation of the second input zone, and

detect as a valid input an input resulting from actuation of the third input zone.

18. The electronic device of claim 16 wherein an input zone of the input portion extends between the pair of elongated bars.

19. The electronic device of claim 2 wherein at least some of the tactile structures are disposed between adjacent ones of the visual elements.

20. The electronic device of claim 19 wherein at least some of the visual elements each comprise a pair of Latin characters, and wherein the processor apparatus has a disambiguation routine executable thereon.