PORTABLE ELECTRONIC DEVICE WITH TOUCH-SENSITIVE DISPLAY AND METHOD OF CONTROLLING SAME

• US 20100171711A1
• Filed: 09/18/2009
• Published: 07/08/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 11/28/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Original Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Inventors: Lowles, Robert James, ROBINSON, James Alexander, WU, Ken, GRIFFIN, Jason Tyler, MAK-FAN, David James
• Application Number:
  US12/562,673
• Publication Number:
  US 20100171711A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/173
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0416 Control or interface arrangements specially adapted for digitisers
• 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 2250/22 including a touch pad, a touch sensor or a touch detector digitizers for touch screens G06F3/041
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/02 Terminal devices

Abstract

A method of controlling a portable electronic device having a touch-sensitive display includes detecting a first touch on the touch-sensitive display, detecting a second touch on the touch-sensitive display while the first touch is maintained, selecting one of the first and second touches as a selected touch based on start or end times of the first and second touches, and determining which one of a plurality of features is associated with a location of the selected touch.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

detecting a first touch on a touch-sensitive display;

detecting a second touch on the touch-sensitive display while the first touch is maintained;

selecting one of the first and second touches as a selected touch based on start or end times of the first and second touches; and

determining which one of a plurality of features is associated with a location of the selected touch.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein selecting comprises selecting based on a later start time of the selected touch.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein determining occurs prior to detecting the second touch.

4. The method according to claim 1, comprising, when the first touch is the selected touch, disregarding the second touch, and when the second touch is the selected touch, disregarding the first touch.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein disregarding comprises disregarding signals from the disregarded touch.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein detecting a first touch comprises determining touch coordinates of the first touch and detecting a second touch comprises determining touch coordinates of the second touch.

7. The method according to claim 1, comprising rendering a keyboard on the touch-sensitive display prior to detecting the first touch and wherein the plurality of selectable features comprises at least one of alphanumeric and symbolic characters from a keyboard.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the one of the plurality of features is a character from a keyboard.

9. The method according to claim 1, comprising detecting an end of the first touch prior to selecting.

10. The method according to claim 1, wherein determining occurs prior to the end of the first touch.

11. A portable electronic device comprising:

a touch-sensitive display; and

at least one processor operably connected to the touch-sensitive display, and configured to detect a first touch on the touch-sensitive display, detect a second touch on the touch-sensitive display while the first touch is maintained, select one of the first and second touches as a selected touch based on start or end times of the first and second touches, and determine which one of a plurality of features is associated with a location of the selected touch.

12. A computer-readable medium having computer-readable code executable by at least one processor of an electronic device comprising a touch-sensitive display to detect a first touch on the touch-sensitive display, detect a second touch on the touch-sensitive display while the first touch is maintained, select one of the first and second touches as a selected touch based on start or end times of the first and second touches, and determine which one of a plurality of features is associated with a location of the selected touch.

13. A method comprising:

detecting a first touch on a touch-sensitive display;

detecting a second touch on the touch-sensitive display while the first touch is maintained;

identifying one of the first and second touches to disregard based on start or end times of the first and second touches.

14. The method according to claim 13, wherein disregarding comprises disregarding based on a later start time of the disregarded touch.

15. The method according to claim 13, comprising, when the first touch is the disregarded touch, selecting the second touch, and when the second touch is the disregarded touch, selecting the first touch.

16. The method according to claim 15, comprising determining which one of a plurality of features is associated with a location of the selected touch.