Handheld electronic device and method for disambiguation of compound text input and that employs N-gram data to limit generation of low-probability compound language solutions

• US 8,515,740 B2
• Filed: 08/13/2012
• Issued: 08/20/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 01/13/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Malikie Innovations Limited (Key Patent Innovations Limited)
• Original Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Inventors: Fux, Vadim, Elizarov, Michael G.
• Primary Examiner(s): SPOONER, LAMONT M
• Application Number:
  US13/584,310
• Publication Number:
  US 20120310631A1
• Time in Patent Office: 372 Days
• Field of Search: 704 1- 10, 341/22, 341/26, 345/168, 345/156, 707706-708, 715/261, 715/816
• US Class Current: 704/9
• 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 1/1662 Details related to the integrated keyboard
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0237 using prediction or retrieval techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/274 Converting codes to words; Guess-ahead of partial word inputs

Abstract

A handheld electronic device includes a reduced QWERTY keyboard and is enabled with disambiguation software that is operable to disambiguate compound text input. The device is able to assemble language objects in the memory to generate compound language solutions. The device is able to analyze the combinations of language objects in light of N-gram data stored on the device to avoid proposing low-probability compound language solutions.

Claims

1. An input method for an electronic device having a display and a memory having stored therein a number of language objects and a number of associated frequency values, at least some of the language objects each comprising a number of characters, the method comprising:

detecting an ambiguous text input including a set of characters;

generating a set of language objects, at least one language object in the set of language objects comprising a first language object that corresponds with an initial set of characters of the ambiguous text input and a second language object that corresponds with another set of characters of the ambiguous text input;

generating a junction object comprising a terminal character of the first language object and an initial character of the second language object;

determining a frequency value associated with the junction object; and

outputting a representation of the at least one language object based, at least in part, on the determined frequency value.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the outputting comprises at least one of:

outputting the representation of the at least one language object at a position of relatively lower priority than a representation of another language object in the set of language objects, or

suppressing from the output the at least one language object.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the number of language objects comprise a number of word objects and a number of n-gram objects, and further wherein the frequency value corresponds to either a frequency value of a n-gram object corresponding with the junction object or a frequency value of zero if no n-gram object corresponding with the junction object is found.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining that an intermediate set of characters of the ambiguous text input following the initial set of characters is consistent with a suffix object in the memory;

employing as the another set of characters of the ambiguous text input the set of characters of the ambiguous text input following the intermediate set of characters; and

generating as the junction object an object comprising the terminal character of the first language object, the suffix object, and the initial character of the second language object.

5. An electronic device comprising:

a processor apparatus comprising a processor and a memory having stored therein a number of language objects and a number of associated frequency values, at least some of the language objects each comprising a number of characters;

a display; and

the memory further having stored therein one or more routines which, when executed on the processor, cause the electronic device to perform operations comprising;

detecting an ambiguous text input including a set of characters;

generating a set of language objects, at least one language object in the set of language objects comprising a first language object that corresponds with an initial set of characters of the ambiguous text input and a second language object that corresponds with another set of characters of the ambiguous text input;

generating a junction object comprising a terminal character of the first language object and an initial character of the second language object;

determining a frequency value associated with the junction object; and

outputting a representation of the at least one language object based, at least in part, on the determined frequency value.

6. The electronic device of claim 5, wherein the outputting comprises at least one of:

outputting the representation of the at least one language object at a position of relatively lower priority than a representation of another language object in the set of language objects, or

suppressing from the output the at least one language object.

7. The electronic device of claim 5, wherein the number of language objects comprise a number of word objects and a number of n-gram objects, and further wherein the frequency value corresponds to either a frequency value of a n-gram object corresponding with the junction object or a frequency value of zero if no n-gram object corresponding with the junction object is found.

8. The electronic device of claim 5, wherein the operations further comprise:

determining that an intermediate set of characters of the ambiguous text input following the initial set of characters is consistent with a suffix object in the memory;

employing as the another set of characters of the ambiguous text input the set of characters of the ambiguous text input following the intermediate set of characters; and

generating as the junction object an object comprising the terminal character of the first language object, the suffix object, and the initial character of the second language object.