Electronic device and method

• US 9,927,888 B2
• Filed: 09/04/2015
• Issued: 03/27/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 12/17/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Toshiba Client Solutions CO., Ltd. (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Inventors: Midorikawa, Makoto, Tsuji, Kazuhiko
• Primary Examiner(s): Sharifi-Tafreshi, Koosha
• Application Number:
  US14/845,710
• Publication Number:
  US 20160179215A1
• Time in Patent Office: 935 Days
• Field of Search: 345157, 345173, 3456791, 345522, 713300, 713310, 713320, 713324
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3215 Monitoring of peripheral devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3218 of display devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3231 Monitoring the presence, absence or movement of users
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3259 Power saving in cursor control device, e.g. mouse, joystick, trackball
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3265 Power saving in display device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3287 by switching off individual functional units in the computer system
• 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: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

According to one embodiment, an electronic device provided with a touchpad includes a switching controller, a display processor, a notification processor and a notification controller. The notification controller is configured to control the notification processor to prevent a notification processing from being executed, even if an operation is performed on the touchpad, when the switching controller switches from a state of enabling an operation on the touchpad to a state of disabling an operation on the touchpad.

Claims

1. An electronic device comprising:

a touchpad;

a keyboard;

a display;

a controller configured to control the touchpad and the keyboard; and

a processor configured to display a mouse cursor on a screen of the display using information notified from the controller,

wherein the controller is configured to;

determine whether the touchpad is in an enabled mode or a disabled mode based on a switch operation by a user using a button or a switch operation using an application,

stop touch input notification processing that notifies information to the processor according to an operation of the touchpad when the touchpad is switched from the enabled mode to the disabled mode,

monitor a state of the electronic device when the touchpad is in the disabled mode to determine whether a backlight of the display is on or off and whether a key input operation is performed or not, and

determine whether to resume or continue stopping the touch input notification processing, and to resume the touch input notification processing from a stopped state to an executable state when the touch input notification processing has been stopped and the backlight is off.

2. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to continuously stop the touch input notification processing when the backlight is on and the key input operation is being performed.

3. The electronic device of claim 2, wherein the controller is configured to monitor whether or not the key input operation is being performed based on whether a preset time has elapsed from the key input operation.

4. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to resume the touch input notification processing from the stopped state to the executable state when the backlight is on and the key input operation is not being performed.

5. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the controller is further configured to:

monitor whether an input from a mouse connected to an input port of the electronic device is present or not, and

continuously stop the touch input notification processing when the backlight is on and the input from the mouse is present.

6. The electronic device of claim 5, wherein the controller is configured to resume the touch input notification processing from a stopped state to an executable state when the backlight is on and the input from the mouse is not present.

7. A method applied to an electronic device including a touchpad, a keyboard, a display, a controller configured to control the touchpad and the keyboard, and a processor configured to display a mouse cursor on a screen of the display using information notified from the controller, the method comprising:

determining whether the touchpad is in an enabled mode or a disabled mode based on a switch operation by a user using a button or a switch operation using an application;

stopping touch input notification processing that notifies the information to the processor according to an operation of the touchpad when the touchpad is switched from the enabled mode to the disabled mode;

monitoring a state of the electronic device when the touchpad is in the disabled mode to determine whether a backlight of the display is on or off and whether a key input operation is performed or not; and

determining whether to resume or continue stopping the touch input notification processing, and resuming the touch input notification processing from a stopped state to an executable state when the touch input notification processing has been stopped and the backlight is off.