TOUCH AND STYLUS DISCRIMINATION AND REJECTION FOR CONTACT SENSITIVE COMPUTING DEVICES
First Claim
1. A touch-sensitive computing device, comprising:
- one or more touch-sensitive input surfaces;
a touch input mechanism that identifies one or more contact sub-regions of at least one of the touch-sensitive input surfaces corresponding to contact areas between one or more portions of at least one of a user'"'"'s hands and at least one of the touch-sensitive input surfaces;
a touch evaluation mechanism that determines whether each contact sub-region corresponds a valid user input attempt;
a sub-region disabling mechanism that disables contact processing for each contact sub-region of any touch-sensitive input surface that does not correspond to a valid input attempt;
wherein any additional contact to any region of any of the touch-sensitive input surfaces, excluding any disabled sub-region, is processed by a contact validation mechanism to determine whether those additional contacts represent a valid input attempt; and
a contact action mechanism for causing the computing device to initiate one or more actions corresponding to any additional contacts that have been determined to a valid input attempt.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A “Contact Discriminator” provides various techniques for differentiating between valid and invalid contacts received from any input methodology by one or more touch-sensitive surfaces of a touch-sensitive computing device. Examples of contacts include single, sequential, concurrent, or simultaneous user finger touches (including gesture type touches), pen or stylus touches or inputs, hover-type inputs, or any combination thereof. The Contact Discriminator then acts on valid contacts (i.e., contacts intended as inputs) while rejecting or ignoring invalid contacts or inputs. Advantageously, the Contact Discriminator is further capable of disabling or ignoring regions of input surfaces, such tablet touch screens, that are expected to receive unintentional contacts, or intentional contacts not intended as inputs, for device or application control purposes. Examples of contacts not intended as inputs include, but are not limited to, a user'"'"'s palm resting on a touch screen while the user writes on that screen with a stylus or pen.
272 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A touch-sensitive computing device, comprising:
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one or more touch-sensitive input surfaces; a touch input mechanism that identifies one or more contact sub-regions of at least one of the touch-sensitive input surfaces corresponding to contact areas between one or more portions of at least one of a user'"'"'s hands and at least one of the touch-sensitive input surfaces; a touch evaluation mechanism that determines whether each contact sub-region corresponds a valid user input attempt; a sub-region disabling mechanism that disables contact processing for each contact sub-region of any touch-sensitive input surface that does not correspond to a valid input attempt; wherein any additional contact to any region of any of the touch-sensitive input surfaces, excluding any disabled sub-region, is processed by a contact validation mechanism to determine whether those additional contacts represent a valid input attempt; and a contact action mechanism for causing the computing device to initiate one or more actions corresponding to any additional contacts that have been determined to a valid input attempt. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
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12. A computer-readable medium having computer executable instructions stored therein for controlling contact responses of a touch-sensitive computing device, said instructions causing a computing device to execute a method comprising:
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identifying one or more contact sub-regions of at least one touch-sensitive input surface of a computing device corresponding to contact areas between one or more portions of at least one of a user'"'"'s hands and at least one of the touch-sensitive input surfaces; determining whether each contact sub-region corresponds a user valid input attempt; disabling each contact sub-region of any touch-sensitive input surface that does not correspond to a valid input attempt; wherein any additional contact to any region of any of the touch-sensitive input surfaces, excluding any disabled sub-region, is processed to determine whether those additional contacts represent a valid input attempt; and causing the computing device to initiate one or more actions corresponding to any additional contacts that have been determined to a valid input attempt. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16)
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17. A method for rejecting regions of unintentional contact on a touch-sensitive surface of a computing device, comprising:
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using a per-user usage profile to predict one or more contact sub-regions of at least one touch-sensitive input surface of a computing device corresponding to contact areas between one or more portions of at least one of a user'"'"'s hands and at least one of the touch-sensitive input surfaces; determining whether each contact sub-region corresponds a valid input attempt by the user; disabling each contact sub-region of any touch-sensitive input surface that does not correspond to a valid input attempt; wherein any additional contact to any region of any of the touch-sensitive input surfaces, excluding any disabled sub-region, is processed to determine whether those additional contacts represent a valid input attempt; and causing the computing device to initiate one or more actions corresponding to any additional contacts that have been determined to a valid input attempt. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20)
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Specification