Avoiding accidental cursor movement when contacting a surface of a trackpad

• US 9,727,151 B2
• Filed: 04/16/2015
• Issued: 08/08/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 04/16/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: de los Reyes, Andrew
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Jimmy H
• Assistant Examiner(s): Cohen, Yaron
• Application Number:
  US14/688,645
• Publication Number:
  US 20160306449A1
• Time in Patent Office: 845 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/03547 Touch pads, in which fingers can move on a surface
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/038 Control and interface arrangements therefor, e.g. drivers or device-embedded control circuitry
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04186 Touch location disambiguation

Abstract

In one general aspect, a method can include identifying a contact on a surface of a trackpad of a computing device, calculating a value of a first speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad, calculating a value of a total distance moved by the contact along the surface of the trackpad, and blocking movement of a cursor on a display device based on determining that the value of the first speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad is less than a fast threshold speed, and based on determining that the value of the total distance moved by the contact along the surface of the trackpad is less than a threshold distance value.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

identifying a contact on a surface of a trackpad of a computing device;

calculating a value of a first speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad;

allowing movement of a cursor on a display device included in the computing device if the value of the first speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad is determined to be greater than a slow threshold speed;

blocking movement of the cursor on the display device if the value of the first speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad is determined to be equal to or less than the slow threshold speed;

subsequent to a blocking of the movement of the cursor on the display device, calculating a second speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad;

calculating a value of an accumulated distance moved by the contact along the surface of the trackpad; and

continuing the blocking of the movement of the cursor on the display device based on;

determining that the value of the second speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad is greater than the slow threshold speed and less than a fast threshold speed, and

determining that the value of the accumulated distance moved by the contact along the surface of the trackpad is less than a threshold distance value.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein blocking movement of the cursor on the display device includes blocking scrolling of information on the display device.

3. The method of claim 1,

wherein the method further includes allowing movement of the cursor on the display device included in the computing device, based on determining that the value of the second speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad is equal to or greater than the fast threshold speed.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein calculating a value of a first speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad comprises calculating the value of the first speed of movement of the contact to be a distance between a current (x,y) coordinate and a previous (x,y) coordinate over a period of time.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the period of time is the time between two frames of input data.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein calculating a value of an accumulated distance moved by the contact along the surface of the trackpad comprises calculating the value of the accumulated distance to be an accumulated sum of distances moved by the contact along the surface of the trackpad.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further includes allowing movement of a cursor on a display device included in the computing device, based on determining that the value of the accumulated distance moved by the contact along the surface of the trackpad is greater than or equal to the threshold distance value.

8. The method of claim 1,

wherein the slow threshold speed is a precalculated speed of movement of the contact between two sequential frames of captured data, and

wherein the fast threshold speed is a precalculated speed of movement of the contact between two sequential frames of captured data.

9. A non-transitory, machine-readable medium having instructions stored thereon, the instructions, when executed by a processor, cause a computing device to:

identify a contact on a surface of a trackpad of a computing device;

calculate a value of a first speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad;

allow movement of a cursor on a display device included in the computing device if the value of the first speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad is determined to be greater than a slow threshold speed;

block movement of the cursor on the display device if the value of the first speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad is determined to be equal to or less than the slow threshold speed;

subsequent to a blocking of the movement of the cursor on the display device, calculate a second speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad;

calculate a value of an accumulated distance moved by the contact along the surface of the trackpad; and

continue to block the movement of the cursor on the display device based on;

determining that the value of the second speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad is greater than the slow threshold speed and less than a fast threshold speed, and

determining that the value of the accumulated distance moved by the contact along the surface of the trackpad does not exceed a threshold distance value.

10. The medium of claim 9, wherein blocking movement of the cursor on the display device includes blocking scrolling of information on the display device.

11. The medium of claim 9, wherein the instructions, when executed by the processor, further cause the computing device to:

allow movement of the cursor on the display device included in the computing device, based on determining that the value of the second speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad is equal to or greater than the fast threshold speed.

12. The medium of claim 9, wherein the instructions, when executed by the processor, that cause the computing device to calculate a value of a first speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad include instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the computing device to calculate the value of the first speed of movement of the contact to be a distance between a current (x,y) coordinate and a previous (x,y) coordinate over a period of time.

13. The medium of claim 12, wherein the period of time is the time between two frames of input data.

14. The medium of claim 9, wherein the instructions, when executed by the processor, that cause the computing device to calculate a value of an accumulated distance moved by the contact along the surface of the trackpad further include instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the computing device to calculate the value of the accumulated distance to be an accumulated sum of distances moved by the contact along the surface of the trackpad.

15. The medium of claim 9, wherein the instructions, when executed by the processor, further cause the computing device to allow movement of a cursor on a display device included in the computing device, based on determining that the value of the accumulated distance moved by the contact along the surface of the trackpad is greater than or equal to the threshold distance value.

16. The medium of claim 9,

wherein the slow threshold speed is a precalculated speed of movement of the contact between two sequential frames of captured data, and

wherein the fast threshold speed is a precalculated speed of movement of the contact between two sequential frames of captured data.

17. A trackpad comprising:

a surface;

a sensor operatively coupled to the surface and configured to identify a contact on the surface of the trackpad;

a controller operatively coupled to the sensor and configured to;

calculate a value of a first speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad;

calculate a value of a second speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad subsequent to the calculating of the value of the first speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad; and

calculate a value of an accumulated distance moved by the contact along the surface of the trackpad;

a bus operatively coupled to the controller;

a kernel driver configured to communicate with the bus; and

a gesture library configured to communicate with the kernel driver,

the gesture library including executable code to translate a movement of the contact on the surface of the trackpad to movement of a cursor on a display device if the value of the first speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad is determined to be greater than a slow threshold speed; and

the gesture library including executable code to not translate a movement of the contact on the surface of the trackpad to movement of the cursor on the display device based on;

determining that the value of the first speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad is equal to or less than the slow threshold speed,

determining that the value of the second speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad is greater than the slow threshold speed and less than a fast threshold speed, and

determining that the value of the accumulated distance moved by the contact along the surface of the trackpad is less than a threshold distance value.

18. The trackpad of claim 17,

wherein the gesture library includes executable code to translate the movement of the contact on the surface of the trackpad to movement of the cursor on the display device, based on determining that the value of the second speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad is equal to or greater than the fast threshold speed.

19. The trackpad of claim 17,

wherein the gesture library includes executable code to translate the movement of the contact on the surface of the trackpad to movement of the cursor on the display device, based on determining that the value of the accumulated distance moved by the contact along the surface of the trackpad is greater than or equal to the threshold distance value.

20. The trackpad of claim 17, the controller further configured to:

precalculate the slow threshold speed as a speed of movement of the contact between two sequential frames of captured data; and

precalculate the fast threshold speed as a speed of movement of the contact between two sequential frames of captured data.