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US 8,713,432 B2Granted
Device and method incorporating an improved text input mechanism
AssigneeNeuer Wall Treuhand GmbH
InventorRamin O Assadollahi
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AssigneeNeuer Wall Treuhand GmbH
InventorRamin O Assadollahi
Estimating the term…
A device and method for its operation comprising a display and input device, a processor to receive character input maintain an input context of words and a dictionary comprising a plurality of word occurrence indicators for selection of candidate words that may follow context words. A word occurrence indicator is associated with a kth order combination of a context word and a candidate word that indicates the frequency by which a respective candidate word follows the corresponding context word by k words in a text corpus. The processor is able to select a list of candidate words where the context word of at least one kth order combination matches the kth last word of input context. A score is determined depending on an associated word occurrence indicator for at least one relevant kth order combination.
An apparatus comprising at least one processor having a memory communicatively associated with said processor, the memory comprising computer executable instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the apparatus to perform:
A method comprising:
A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable medium having stored therein computer executable instructions, said instructions when executed causing an apparatus to perform:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
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Natural language analysis: converting codes to words; Guess-ahead of partial word inputs
Character input methods: using prediction or retrieval techniques
Details of telephonic subscriber devices: methods for entering alphabetical characters, e.g. multi-tap or dictionary disambiguation
Computing and data processing
About 2 years 7 months of term left · ends 10 Jun 2029 (estimated)
The present application is the U.S. national stage under 35 U.S.C. §371 of a foreign Patent Cooperation Treaty application, PCT/EP2009/004194 filed on Jun. 10, 2009, which claims priority from European patent application 08158079.7 filed Jun. 11, 2008.
The present invention relates to a device incorporating an improved text input mechanism, a method for improved text input and computer program for performing the method. More particularly, the present invention relates to a device such as a personal digital assistant or cellular telephone which incorporates a method for contextual prediction of the next word of text to be input. The method of the present invention minimizes the number of keystrokes necessary to input text.
The use of miniature computers such as personal digital assistants (PDA) and cellular devices capable of text messaging has become increasingly popular. Such miniature devices include correspondingly miniature sized input mechanisms. Typically PDA's and the like utilize a miniature keyboard or a multi-tap data entry mechanism. The miniature size of the input mechanism makes it impractical to enter large amounts of text, and it is desirable to minimize the number of keystrokes necessary to enter text.
The objects and features of the invention will become apparent from the following description of preferred embodiments. The present invention is described in the following by referring to exemplary embodiments illustrated schematically in the accompanying figures, wherein
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a device including the predictive data entry mechanism of the present invention;
FIG. 2 shows a sample device including the predictive data entry mechanism of the present invention;
The present invention provides an efficient method for inputting text, and is particularly suited for cellular telephones, handheld computers such as personal digital assistants, and other devices requiring data entry. The present invention is indifferent to the specific method for inputting text. Text may be entered using a keyboard, a virtual keyboard such as a touch screen, a so-called Graffiti style of writing popularized by the PALM® operating system, or any other man-machine interface.
The basic concept underlying the present invention is that the next item of text is predicted based on the preceding word or words of text. Furthermore, non-linguistic contexts (such as the identification of a text field as “address field”) may be used to predict words.
According to a first embodiment, the system provides a list of candidate words for the next word of text based on the preceding word or delimiter. However, as will be explained below, the present invention may readily be adapted to predict the next word based on preferred combinations of preceding words or delimiters and/or linguistic analysis thereof. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the operating environment of the present invention. The system 10 of the present invention includes an input device 100 which may be a keypad, keyboard, touch sensitive screen or the like which hereinafter will be referred to as keyboard 100. The system 10 further includes a display 102 for displaying the text entered as well as an m word list of predicted candidate words. The screen may be an LCD screen or the like, and in the case of a touch sensitive screen the display 102 may serve a dual purpose both as a display and as the keyboard 100. The present invention will work with any means for inputting text, and any means for displaying text.