Spell-check for a keyboard system with automatic correction
AssigneeNuance Communications, Inc.
InventorErland UNRUH
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
User input is received, specifying a continuous traced path across a keyboard presented on a touch sensitive display. An input sequence is resolved, including traced keys and auxiliary keys proximate to the traced keys by prescribed criteria. For each of one or more candidate entries of a prescribed vocabulary, a set-edit-distance metric is computed between said input sequence and the candidate entry. Various rules specify when penalties are imposed, or not, in computing the set-edit-distance metric. Candidate entries are ranked and displayed according to the computed metric.
Claims4
A method, comprising operations of:
- receiving user input specifying a continuous traced path across a keyboard presented on a touch sensitive display;
- resolving an input sequence of traced keys and auxiliary keys proximate to the traced keys by prescribed criteria;
- for each of one or more candidate entries of a prescribed vocabulary, computing a set-edit-distance metric between said input sequence and the candidate entry;
- where:
- the set-edit-distance computation imposes a penalty for omitting from the candidate entry all keys from a first group comprising a start key of the path and auxiliary keys to the start key;
- the set-edit-distance computation imposes a penalty for omitting from the candidate entry all keys from a second group comprising an end key of the path and auxiliary keys to the end key;
- the set-edit-distance computation imposes a penalty for omitting from the candidate entry all keys from a third group comprising any traced keys and their auxiliaries where at least a prescribed minimum change in direction of the path occurs;
- the set-edit-distance computation does not impose any penalty for omitting from the candidate entry any key of the input sequence outside all of the first, second, and third groups;
- and
- the set-edit-distance computation does not impose any penalty the candidate entry using any key in the input sequence twice or more in succession;
- and
- ranking candidate entries according to the computed set-edit-distance metrics, and displaying an output of some or all of the ranked candidate entries;
- where at least one of the operations is performed by a processor.
An apparatus, comprising:
- a display;
- a user input device comprising a keypad of multiple keys, or a touch sensitive display surface;
- digital data storage containing a vocabulary database including multiple vocabulary entries;
- and
- coupled to the display, the user input, and the storage, a processor programmed to perform operations comprising:
- via the user input device, receiving user input comprising a sequence of keys comprising one of the following:
- keys contacted and proximate to a continuous trace entered via touch sensitive display surface, or pressed keypad keys where one or more of the pressed keypad keys concurrently represents multiple characters;
- identifying different candidate words each representing a combination of characters potentially represented by the sequence of keys;
- comparing the candidate words to entries of the vocabulary to score the compared vocabulary entries accordingly to likelihood of representing the user input;
- and
- where the comparing operation avoids penalizing any vocabulary entry that includes any of the following that is not present in the input sequence:
- punctuation, symbols, digits, repetition of any character represented on a key of the user input, use of multiple characters represented together on one key of the user input.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.