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 a plurality of 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;
in response to the identification of the plurality of contact areas, the touch input mechanism further identifying one or more predicted areas of contact on the touch-sensitive input surfaces, prior to actual user contact with those predicted areas, that are expected to receive unintentional contacts concurrently with the contact between one or more portions of at least one of the user'"'"'s hands and at least one of the touch-sensitive input surfaces;
a touch evaluation mechanism that determines whether each of the plurality of contact areas corresponds to a valid user input attempt;
a sub-region disabling mechanism that disables contact processing for any of the plurality of contact areas that does not correspond to a valid input attempt and that also disables contact processing for the predicted areas of contact; and
a contact action mechanism for causing the computing device to initiate one or more actions corresponding to any contacts with areas of the touch-sensitive input surfaces for which contact processing has not been disabled.
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.
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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 a plurality of 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; in response to the identification of the plurality of contact areas, the touch input mechanism further identifying one or more predicted areas of contact on the touch-sensitive input surfaces, prior to actual user contact with those predicted areas, that are expected to receive unintentional contacts concurrently with the contact between one or more portions of at least one of the user'"'"'s hands and at least one of the touch-sensitive input surfaces; a touch evaluation mechanism that determines whether each of the plurality of contact areas corresponds to a valid user input attempt; a sub-region disabling mechanism that disables contact processing for any of the plurality of contact areas that does not correspond to a valid input attempt and that also disables contact processing for the predicted areas of contact; and a contact action mechanism for causing the computing device to initiate one or more actions corresponding to any contacts with areas of the touch-sensitive input surfaces for which contact processing has not been disabled. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
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12. A computing device having computer executable instructions stored therein for controlling contact responses of a touch-sensitive computing device, said instructions causing the computing device to execute a method comprising:
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identifying a plurality of contact areas between one or more portions of at least one of a user'"'"'s hands and at least one of a plurality of touch-sensitive input surfaces; determining whether each contact area corresponds to a valid user input attempt; in response to each valid user input attempt, identifying one or more predicted areas of contact on one or more of the touch-sensitive input surfaces, prior to actual user contact with those predicted areas, that are expected to receive unintentional contacts sequentially following the plurality of contact areas between one or more portions of at least one of the user'"'"'s hands and at least one of the plurality of touch-sensitive input surfaces; disabling contact processing for each contact area that does not correspond to a valid input attempt; disabling contact processing for each predicted area of contact; and causing the computing device to initiate one or more actions corresponding to any contacts with areas of the touch-sensitive input surfaces for which contact processing has not been disabled. - 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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identifying one or more contact areas between one or more portions of at least one of a user'"'"'s hands and at least one touch-sensitive input surface; in response to the identification of one or more contact areas, using a per-user usage profile to predict one or more areas of contact on the at least one touch-sensitive input surface, prior to actual user contact with those predicted areas, that are expected to receive unintentional contacts in combination with the contact between one or more portions of at least one of the user'"'"'s hands and at least one touch-sensitive input surface; determining whether each contact area corresponds to a valid input attempt by the user; disabling contact processing for each contact area of any touch-sensitive input surface that does not correspond to a valid input attempt; disabling contact processing for each predicted area that is expected to receive unintended contacts; and causing the computing device to initiate one or more actions corresponding to any contacts with areas of the at least one touch-sensitive input surface for which contact processing has not been disabled. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20)
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Specification