TOUCH-PANEL CELLULAR PHONE AND INPUT OPERATION METHOD

• US 20160134745A1
• Filed: 01/21/2016
• Published: 05/12/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 05/02/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NEC Corporation
• Original Assignee: NEC Corporation
• Inventors: MAKIGUCHI, Tomoya
• Granted Patent: US 9,843,664 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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 1/169 the I/O peripheral being an integrated pointing device, e.g. trackball in the palm rest area, mini-joystick integrated between keyboard keys, touch pads or touch stripes G06F1/1643 takes precedence; constructional details of pointing devices G06F3/033
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04806 Zoom, i.e. interaction techniques or interactors for controlling the zooming operation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04808 Several contacts: gestures triggering a specific function, e.g. scrolling, zooming, right-click, when the user establishes several contacts with the surface simultaneously; e.g. using several fingers or a combination of fingers and pen
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0487 using specific features provided by the input device, e.g. functions controlled by the rotation of a mouse with dual sensing arrangements, or of the nature of the input device, e.g. tap gestures based on pressure sensed by a digitiser
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0488 using a touch-screen or digitiser, e.g. input of commands through traced gestures
• 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 1/72454 according to context-related or environment-related conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72463 to restrict the functionality of the device
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/724631 by limiting the access to the user interface, e.g. locking a touch-screen or a keypad

Abstract

A touch-panel cellular phone specifies an invalid area not accepting a user'"'"'s input operation on a touch panel in advance. The cellular phone detects a user'"'"'s touch area on the touch panel so as to execute a function pre-assigned to the touch area not encompassed by the invalid area. Additionally, it is possible to reduce and display menu icons in the display area precluding the invalid area on the touch panel. Thus, it is possible to prevent an error operation when a user holding a cellular phone inadvertently touches the touch panel.

Claims

1. A method of specifying an invalid area on a touch panel, the method comprising:

detecting a touch area on the touch panel;

specifying an invalid area having an arbitrary shape based on a shape of the touch area after a predetermined operation is input; and

recording the invalid area as not accepting a user'"'"'s input operation on the touch panel.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein at least one part of the arbitrary shape comprises a curve line.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein the curve line is a quadratic curve.

4. The method according to claim 2, wherein the curve line is a conic curve.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined operation is a touching on a predetermined area.

6. The method according to claim 1 further comprising:

executing an application program,

wherein the invalid area is specified based on the shape of the touch area after the predetermined operation is input while the application program is executed.

7. The method according to claim 1 further comprising:

displaying a message after the invalid area is specified.

8. The method according to claim 1 further comprising:

determining whether a user touches the touch panel after recording the invalid area,

determining whether a contact area of touching by the user is encompassed by the invalid area,

notifying of the contact area after determining that the contact area is not encompassed by the invalid area.