DATA ENTRY DEVICE AND METHOD

• US 20090135142A1
• Filed: 11/27/2007
• Published: 05/28/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/27/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Motorola Mobility, Inc. (Lenovo Group Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Motorola, Inc. (Motorola Solutions, Inc.)
• Inventors: Oliver, Manuel, Fu, Chia-Yu
• Application Number:
  US11/945,331
• Publication Number:
  US 20090135142A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/168
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/016 Input arrangements with force or tactile feedback as computer generated output to the user
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0233 Character input methods
• CPC Class Codes: H03K 17/96 Touch switches specially adapted for electronic time-pieces with no moving parts G04G21/08

Abstract

A method of entering data into an electronic device (110, 210) includes touching (902, 912) with continual pressure a touch input region (114). Feedback is received (904, 914, 916, 920, 922) indicating a plurality of input possibilities for selection, wherein the touch is released (906, 924) in response to the feedback (904, 914, 916, 920, 922) in one of a temporal or spatial displacement (918) to select one of the plurality of input possibilities.

Claims

1. A method of providing user input into an electronic device, comprising:

touching with continual pressure a touch input region;

receiving feedback from the electronic device indicating a plurality of input possibilities for selection; and

releasing the continual pressure in response to the feedback in one of a temporal, force, or spatial displacement to select one of the plurality of input possibilities.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the receiving feedback step comprises receiving a plurality of haptic indications, each haptic indication representing one of the plurality of inputs.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the receiving feedback step comprises receiving a plurality of haptic indications, each haptic indication representing one of the plurality of characters and each haptic indication having an increasing intensity.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the touching step comprises touching a character entry member of a keypad on a mobile communications device.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the receiving feedback step comprises receiving a visual indication on a display screen.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the receiving feedback step comprises receiving a visual indication of the plurality of input possibilities.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the visual indication step comprises highlighting one of the plurality of characters as determined by the spatial displacement of the touch.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the receiving feedback step comprises receiving an audio indication of the plurality of input possibilities.

9. A method of entering data into an electronic device, comprising:

touching with continual pressure a touch input region;

receiving a plurality of successive haptic indications, each of the indications representing a different input; and

releasing the continual pressure after one of the haptic indications, thereby selecting the input represented by the one of the haptic indications.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the receiving step comprises receiving a plurality of haptic indications, each haptic indication representing one of the plurality of characters and each haptic indication having an increasing intensity.

11. The method of claim 9 wherein the touching step comprises touching a character entry member of a keypad on a mobile communications device.

12. The method of claim 9 wherein the receiving step further comprises receiving a visual indication on a display screen.

13. The method of claim 9 wherein the receiving step further comprises receiving a visual indication of the plurality of input possibilities.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the visual indication step comprises highlighting one of the plurality of inputs as determined by the spatial displacement of the touch.

15. The method of claim 9 wherein the receiving feedback step comprises receiving an audio indication of the plurality of input possibilities.

16. A method of entering data into an electronic device, comprising:

touching with continual pressure a input entry member disposed on a touch screen;

presenting a visual indication of a plurality of inputs, one of the inputs being visually identified;

moving the continual pressure across the touch screen, thereby causing another of the plurality of inputs to be visually identified; and

releasing the touch to select the visually identified input.

17. The method of claim 16 further comprising providing a haptic response with the visual identification of each of the plurality of inputs.

18. The method of claim 16 further comprising receiving a plurality of haptic indications, each haptic indication representing one of the plurality of inputs.

19. The method of claim 16 further comprising receiving a plurality of haptic indications, each haptic indication representing one of the plurality of inputs and each haptic indication having an increasing intensity.

20. The method of claim 16 wherein the touching step comprises touching a character entry member of a keypad on a mobile communications device.

21. The method of claim 16 wherein the presenting step comprises presenting a visual indication on a display screen.

22. The method of claim 16 wherein the presenting step comprises highlighting one of the plurality of inputs as determined by the spatial displacement of the touch.

23. The method of claim 16 further comprising receiving an audio indication representing each of the plurality of inputs.