Patent · US Expired

Character input device

US7530031B2 · kind B2 · utility

36Cited by
15References
14Claims
0Family size

Assignees

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateJan 27, 2003
Grant dateMay 5, 2009
Priority date
Expiry dateJul 7, 2024

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F3/0236
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A character input device not completely occupying a screen, good in visibility, and enabling input of characters while reducing to a minimum the movement of the fingers and line of sight, which, in the case of input of for example the hiragana 50-character phonetic syllabary of the Japanese language, displays an initial block of the major group lead characters a (), ka (), sa (), ta (), na () on a first row of a character input region on a display screen and the block of the remaining major group lead characters ha (), ma (), ya (), ra (), wa () on the second row, allows movement of a focus position or character position by “left” and “right” keys (a ()→ka ()→sa ()→ . . . ), switches the character focused to the block of ha (), ma (), ya (), ra (), wa () after the focus position reaches na (), allows switching between displayed characters by for example using the “down” key to move to the next character (for example, a ()→i ()→u ()→ . . . ) and using the “up” key to move to the furthest character in the group (for example, a ()→o ()→ . . . ), and allowing input of the character by using a “decision” key when the character to be input is focused on.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.