Method for generating text in a handheld electronic device and a handheld electronic device incorporating the same

• US 7,620,540 B2
• Filed: 04/29/2005
• Issued: 11/17/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 04/29/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Malikie Innovations Limited (Key Patent Innovations Limited)
• Original Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Inventors: Griffin, Jason T., Fux, Vadim
• Primary Examiner(s): Hudspeth; David R
• Assistant Examiner(s): KOVACEK, DAVID M
• Application Number:
  US11/119,387
• Publication Number:
  US 20060247916A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,663 Days
• Field of Search: 704 3- 10, 704270-272, 369 471- 4713, 369/52.1, 369 83- 99, 725 37- 63, 700 90- 94, 700213-224
• US Class Current: 704/8
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/454 Multi-language systems; Localisation; Internationalisation

Abstract

Incoming e-mails, instant messages, SMS, and MMS, are scanned for new language objects such as words, abbreviations, text shortcuts and, in appropriate languages, ideograms, that are placed in a list for use by a text input process of a handheld electronic device to facilitate the generation of text.

Claims

1. A method of entering text into a handheld electronic device having at least one application for receiving text from sources external to the handheld electronic device and a text input process that accesses at least one list of stored language objects to facilitate generation of text, the method comprising:

processing received text received from an external source comprising scanning the received text for any new language object not in any list of stored language objects;

determining whether any of the new language objects can be considered to be objects not in a language currently being employed in the text input process by examining the new language objects to determine whether the new language objects possess one or more specified characteristics at least partially indicative of or particular to a language other than the language currently being employed in the text input process;

ignoring any new language objects which can be considered to be not in said language; and

adding any non-ignored new language object to the at least one list of said lists of stored language objects for use by the text input process in generating text.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising making as at least a portion of said determination whether any of the new language objects can be considered to be objects not in a language currently being employed in the text input process, a determination that a ratio of the quantity of new language objects in a segment of text to the quantity of language objects in the segment of text does not exceed a predetermined threshold.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the at least one application for receiving text from a source external to the handheld electronic device comprises an e-mail application and the received text comprises received e-mail messages.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the handheld electronic device comprises input keys at least some of which input multiple linguistic elements used by the text input process to generate the language objects, and wherein the text input process determines from a sequence of inputs from a sequence of inputs from the input keys an intended language object, and the at least one list of a number of lists of stored language units comprises a first list containing language objects and a new list in which the new language objects are stored, the text input process having a preference rule for taking language objects from the first list and the new list to generate text.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the first list has a frequency of use associated with each language object stored in the first list, the text input process associates a frequency of use with each of the new language objects stored in the new list and the preference rule uses the frequencies of use of the language objects in the first list and the new list in selecting language objects to use in generating the text.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising making as at least a portion of said determination whether any of the new language objects can be considered to be not in a language currently being employed in the text input process, a determination that a ratio of the quantity of new language objects in a segment of text to the quantity of language objects in the segment of text exceeds a predetermined threshold and, responsive thereto, comparing the new language objects with a set of predetermined linguistic elements that are at least partially indicative of the current language.

7. The method of claim 6 further comprising determining that at least one new language object has a linguistic element other than the linguistic elements within the set of predetermined linguistic elements and, responsive thereto, initiating the ignoring of the at least one new language object.

8. The method of claim 7 further comprising determining that a ratio of the quantity of new language objects in the segment of text to the quantity of language objects in the segment of text does not exceed another predetermined threshold and, responsive thereto, initiating said adding of any non-ignored new language objects to the at least one list of stored language objects.

9. A handheld electronic device comprising:

a plurality of applications that utilize text and at least one of said applications receives text from a source external to the handheld electronic device;

an input device through which a user inputs linguistic elements for generating text;

an input system comprising;

a first list storing language objects;

a new list storing new language objects; and

a text input processor comprising processing means selecting from received text from the source external to the handheld electronic device new language objects not in the first list or the new list, means determining whether any of the new language objects can be considered to be objects not in a language currently being employed in the text input process by examining the new language objects to determine whether the new language objects possess one or more specified characteristics at least partially indicative of or particular to a language other than the language currently being employed in the text input process, ignoring any new language objects which can be considered to be not in said language and adding any non-ignored language objects to the new list, and means for using selected language objects stored in the first list and the new list to generate the desired text from the linguistic elements. input through the user interface; and

output means presenting the desired text to the user.

10. The handheld electronic device of claim 9 wherein the processing means further comprises means making as at least a portion of said determination whether any of the new language objects can be considered to be objects not in a language currently being employed in the text input process a determination that a ratio of the quantity of new language objects in a segment of text to the quantity of language objects in the segment of text does not exceed a predetermined threshold.

11. The handheld electronic device of claim 9 wherein the processing means further comprises means making as at least a portion of said determination whether any of the new language objects can be considered to be objects not in a language currently being employed in a text input process a determination that a ratio of the quantity of new language objects in a segment of text to the quantity of language objects in the segment of text exceeds a predetermined threshold and, responsive thereto, comparing the new language objects with the set of predetermined linguistic elements that are at least partially indicative of the language currently being employed.

12. The handheld electronic device of claim 11 wherein the processing means further comprises means determining that at least one new language object has a linguistic element other than the linguistic element within the set of predetermined linguistic elements and, responsive thereto, initiating the ignoring of the at least one new language object.

13. The handheld electronic device of claim 12 wherein the processing means further comprises means for determining that a ratio of the quantity of ignored new language objects in the segment of text to the quantity of language objects in the segment of text does not exceed another predetermined threshold and, responsive thereto, initiating said adding of any non-ignored new language objects to the at least one list of stored language objects.