Clearing potentially inadvertent entries in electronic device
Contents
1. 34 The non transitory computer readable medium of claim 33 further comprising instructions for displaying a warning message prior to clearing the image 35 The non transitory computer readable medium of claim 34 further comprising instructions for displaying a countdown UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE CERTIFICATE OF CORRECTION PATENT NO 7 924 268 B2 Page 1 of 1 APPLICATION NO 11 270972 DATED April 12 2011 INVENTOR S Kavounas It is certified that error appears in the above identified patent and that said Letters Patent is hereby corrected as shown below Title page item 73 under Assignee in Column 1 Line 2 delete US and insert US 19904 Column 9 line 16 in Claim 7 delete earlier generated and insert earlier generated Signed and Sealed this David J Kappos Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office2. received in interface 220 are echoed in screen 280 by corre sponding images Telephone 200 also includes a processor not shown simi lar to processor 140 of set 100 or is otherwise capable of performing methods of the invention or both This way tele phone 200 can determine whether some of the manual entries in interface 220 were inadvertent and if so clear them FIG 3 is a perspective diagram of a Personal Digital Assis tant PDA 300 PDA 300 is the host electronic device for set 100 of the components of FIG 1 according to embodiments PDA 300 has an interface 320 which can include pushbut tons and or other controls Interface 320 operates similarly to the above described interface 120 PDA 300 also has a screen 380 similarly to the above described screen 180 In some embodiments the user s manual entries that are received in interface 320 are echoed in screen 380 by corresponding images PDA 300 also includes a processor not shown similar to processor 140 of set 100 or is otherwise capable of perform ing methods of the invention or both This way PDA 300 can determine whether some of the manual entries in interface 320 were inadvertent and if so clear them FIG 4 is a perspective diagram of an electronic player 400 Player 400 is the host electronic device for set 100 of the components of FIG 1 according to embodiments Player 400 can be for example an electronic music player such as an MP3 music player Or pl
3. as novel and non obvious Additional claims for other combinations and subcombina tions of features functions elements and or properties may be presented in this or a related document What is claimed is 1 A mobile electronic device comprising a user interface adapted to generate user signals in response to receipt of manual entries at the user interface wherein a long duration manual entry results in generation of a number of user signals a processing device adapted to apply a user signal to an associated data entry to apply a most recent user signal to a most recent data entry in response to generation of the most recent user signal to measure atime lapse since generation of the most recent user signal during which a subsequent user signal is not generated to compare the time lapse to a timeout period and to clear the most recent data entry in response to the time lapse exceeding the timeout period and wherein the processing device is further adapted to mea sure a second time lapse since clearing the most recently generated data entry during which a user signal is not generated to compare the second time lapse to a second timeout period and to clear a data entry associated with auser signal generated before the most recent user signal in response to the second time lapse exceeding the sec ond timeout period 2 The mobile electronic device of claim 1 wherein the data entries are a sequence of data entries 3 The mobile
4. be unaware that they made inadvertent entries and that the host device cleared them Ata later time T10 the user uses the host device by making entries as intended For example they could be dialing a telephone number A difference should be observed over the prior art Without the embodiment of the invention of this example when at T9 the user looked again they would have seen instead the screen of time T6 Then they would have to take an extra step to clear it A person skilled in the art will be able to practice the present invention in view of the description present in this document which is to be taken as a whole Numerous details have been set forth in order to provide a more thorough understanding of the invention In other instances well known features have not been described in detail in order not to obscure unnecessarily the invention While the invention has been disclosed in its preferred form the specific embodiments as disclosed and illustrated herein are not to be considered in a limiting sense Indeed it should be readily apparent to those skilled in the art in view of the present description that the invention may be modified in numerous ways The inventor regards the subject matter of the invention to include all combinations and subcombinations of the various elements features functions and or properties disclosed herein The following claims define certain combinations and sub combinations which are regarded
5. electronic device of claim 2 wherein the sequence of data entries comprises a sequence of identical data entries 4 The mobile electronic device of claim 1 wherein the processing device is adapted to adjust at least one of the timeout periods according to habitual use of the mobile elec tronic device 5 The mobile electronic device of claim 1 further compris ing a memory adapted to store a record corresponding to the US 7 924 268 B2 9 user signal wherein the record is cleared from the memory when the data entry is cleared 6 The mobile electronic device of claim 1 further compris ing a screen adapted to display an image corresponding to the data entry wherein the image is cleared from the screen in response to clearance of the data entry 7 A mobile electronic device comprising auser interface adapted to generate user signals in response to receipt of manual entries at the user interface and a processing device adapted to receive consecutively gen erated user signals to collectively store the generated user signals and to clear a sequence of identical user signals of the collectively stored user signals beginning with a most recently generated user signal before clear ing an earlier generated user signal the processing device adapted to clear one user signal of the sequence of identical user signals at a time in response to the sequence of identical user signals exceeding a predeter mined number of identical user sign
6. erated comparing the second time lapse to a second timeout period and clearing an earlier data entry in response to the second time lapse exceeding the second timeout period 12 The method of claim 11 wherein the data entries are a sequence of data entries 13 The method of claim 12 wherein the sequence of data entries comprises a sequence of identical data entries 14 The method of claim 11 wherein clearing the earlier data entry in response to the second time lapse exceeding the second timeout period comprises clearing a data entry that is the same as the most recent data entry 15 The method of claim 11 further comprising storing a record corresponding to the signal and clearing the record when the data entry is cleared 16 The method of claim 11 further comprising displaying an image corresponding to the data entry and clearing the image in response to clearance of the data entry 20 35 40 45 50 55 65 10 17 The method of claim 16 further comprising displaying a warning message prior to clearing the data entry when the time lapse exceeds the first timeout period 18 The method of claim 17 wherein displaying the warn ing message prior to clearing the image further comprises displaying a countdown 19 The method of claim 11 further comprising adjusting at least one of the timeout periods in response to habitual use of the mobile electronic device 20 A method of operating a mobile electronic devic
7. further comprising instructions for displaying a countdown 30 The non transitory computer readable medium of claim 25 further comprising instructions for adjusting at least one of the timeout periods in response to habitual use of the mobile electronic device 31 A non transitory computer readable medium having computer readable instructions stored thereon the instruc tions comprising instructions for generating and collectively storing in a memory signals in response to receipt of manual entries from a user interface instructions for determining whether the signals comprise a sequence of identical signals exceeding a predeter mined number of identical signals and instructions for clearing the sequence of identical signals from the memory one signal at a time in response to the number of identical signals exceeding the predeter 5 12 mined number of identical signals wherein clearing the sequence of identical signals begins with a most recently generated user signal before clearing an earlier gener ated user signal 32 The non transitory computer readable medium of claim 31 further comprising instructions for storing a record corresponding to the signals and clearing the record as the signals are cleared 33 The non transitory computer readable medium of claim 31 further comprising instructions for displaying an image corresponding to the identical signals and clearing the image as the identical signals are cleared
8. includes a processor 140 provided as per the invention Processor 140 receives via interface 120 user sig nals US that correspond to the manual entries ME of the user In some embodiments it is also advantageous but not neces sary that processor 140 is also the same processor as the one provided for implementing the regular functions of the host device e g in response to regularly receiving the user signals US from interface 120 Whether a processor as per the inven tion or also implementing the regular functions of the host device processor 140 can be made in any way known in the art Examples only include a general purpose processor that is specially programmed or a dedicated processor imple mented in one or more units The end result for processor 140 is a microcontroller or a microprocessor or a Digital Signal Processor DSP or a Floating Point Gate Array or an Appli cation Specific Integrated Circuit ASIC etc Processor 140 determines whether manual entry ME was intentional The determination is depicted conceptually by a thought shape 142 in FIG 1 If it is determined that indeed manual entry ME was intentional user signals US are applied to their regular use for the host device Processor 140 of course cannot read the mind of the user to determine whether their movement that resulted in manual entry ME was intentional or not Therefore processor 140 makes this determination by any number of criteria There can be many
9. such criteria according to the invention In a number of embodiments the criteria are chosen so that they infer the US 7 924 268 B2 3 probable mindset of the user at the time of the movement that resulted in the manual entry ME One such criterion is that enough time passes from a manual entry ME without anything else happening If so the manual entry ME can be deemed inadvertent not intentional and it can be inferred that the user did not have an intention to actually use the device There are a number of ways of imple menting such a criterion In some embodiments processor 140 includes an optional timer 144 which can determine whether a timeout period expires The timeout period can be measured starting from any number of events such as when the entry ME was made or the user signal US was generated A good duration for the timeout period would be 30 seconds Additional extensions of the invention include the feature and method of setting the duration of the timeout period or adjusting it In some embodiments the user can be prompted to adjust the timeout duration In some embodiments the user can even disable the feature In yet more embodiments the host device can learn from habitual behaviors of the user and adjust the duration One objective of such automatic adjusting can be for the operation of the invention to remain discreet and unobtrusive Another such criterion is that a previous entry ME was deemed inadverten
10. RIOR ENTRY RECEIVED YES 570 570 CLEAR USER SIGNAL OF PRIOR ENTRY FIGURE 5 U S Patent Apr 12 2011 Sheet 4 of 4 US 7 924 268 B2 600 WHAT USE USER AC TION EMBODIMENT OF SCREEN R SEES i RESETS NOT LOOKING INADVERTENT ENTRY 4 STOPS LOOKING AT DEVICE E NOT LOOKING RTO SEE IF 4 INADVERTENT NOT LOOKING STOPS TIMER INADVERTENT ENTRY 1 SEE IF 1 NOT LOOKING INADVERTENT NOT LOOKING TIMER TIMEOUT SO 1 INADVER TENT CLEARS 1 NOT LOOKING CLEARED 1 50 4 T STARTS TIMER TO ALSO INADVERTENT CLEARS 4 D AS Tl FIGURE 6 SAMPLE CLEARING OPERATIONS US 7 924 268 B2 1 CLEARING POTENTIALLY INADVERTENT ENTRIES IN ELECTRONIC DEVICE BACKGROUND 1 Field of the Invention The present invention is related to the field of portable electronic devices such as cellular telephones personal digi tal assistants PDAs players such as music players and game players and the like and more specifically to such devices that have an interface for manual entries by the user and further features for reacting to user entries that were poten tially inadvertent 2 Description of the Related Art Portable electronic devices such as cell phones personal digital assistants players and the like are proliferating Increasingly people carry them on their persons for ease of use Many of these devices have interfaces for the user to make e
11. US007924268B2 az United States Patent 10 Patent No US 7 924 268 B2 Kavounas 45 Date of Patent Apr 12 2011 54 CLEARING POTENTIALLY INADVERTENT 5 991 396 A 11 1999 Salm etal wo 715 860 ENTRIES IN ELECTRONIC DEVICE 5 995 844 A 11 1999 Fukuda 6 567 672 Bl 5 2003 Park et al 2 6 630 927 B2 10 2003 Sh tal 75 Inventor Gregory T Kavounas Kirkland WA 6 731312 B2 5 2004 An e US 6 867 763 B2 3 2005 Griffin etal 345 168 6 947 771 B2 9 2005 Guo et al 73 Assignee Frobisher Fulton PA L L C Dover DE 7 099 684 B2 8 2006 Cowsky et al US 7 256 769 B2 8 2007 Pun etal oe 345 171 7 382 359 B2 6 2008 Griffin 345 169 A 2002 0190962 A1 12 2002 Miura a 345 173 Notice Subject to any disclaimer the term of this 2004 0204123 A1 10 2004 Cowsky et al 455 565 patent is extended or adjusted under 35 2005 0116840 Al 6 2005 Simelius s0110 345 168 U S C 154 b by 894 days FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS 21 Appl No 11 270 972 JP 01100619 A 4 1989 cited by examiner 22 Filed Nov 10 2005 65 Prior Publication Data Primary Examiner Chanh Nguyen US 2007 0118505 Al May 24 2007 Assistant Examiner Adam J Snyder 74 Attorney Agent or Firm Fitch Even Tabin amp 51 Int Cl Flannery GO6F 3 02 2006 01 52 US Cl uu stensnnnnnnnnnsnnnnisie 345 169 57 Per yte 58 Field of Classification Search 345 156 345 168 172 455 565 341 22 34 Electronic devi
12. als 8 The mobile electronic device of claim 7 further compris ing a memory adapted to store a record corresponding to the user signal wherein the record is cleared from the memory when the user signal is cleared 9 The mobile electronic device of claim 7 further compris ing a screen adapted to display an image corresponding to the user signal wherein the image is cleared from the screen in response to clearance of the user signal 10 The mobile electronic device of claim 7 further com prising a display that is adapted to display characters corre sponding to the consecutively generated user signals and wherein the processing device is adapted to clear the sequence of identical user signals from the display 11 A method of limiting inadvertent use of a mobile elec tronic device the method comprising generating a signal in response to receipt of a manual entry wherein a long duration manual entry results in gener ating a plurality of signals applying a most recently generated signal to a most recent data entry measuring a time lapse since receipt of the manual entry associated with the most recently generated signal dur ing which no subsequent signal is generated comparing the time lapse to a first timeout period clearing the most recent data entry in response to the time lapse exceeding the first timeout period measuring a second time lapse since clearing the most recent data entry during which a user signal is not gen
13. ayer 400 can be a game playing device and so on Player 400 has an interface 420 which can include a wheel pushbuttons and so on Interface 420 operates similarly to the above described interface 120 Player 400 also has a screen 480 similarly to the above described screen 180 US 7 924 268 B2 5 Player 400 also includes a processor not shown similar to processor 140 of set 100 or is otherwise capable of perform ing methods of the invention or both This way player 400 can determine whether some of the manual entries in interface 420 were inadvertent and if so clear them Moreover methods are described below The methods and algorithms presented herein are not necessarily inherently associated with any particular computer or other apparatus Rather various general purpose machines may be used with programs in accordance with the teachings herein or it may prove more convenient to construct more specialized appara tus to perform the required method steps The required struc ture for a variety of these machines will become apparent from this description In all cases there should be borne in mind the distinction between methods in this description and the method of oper ating a computing machine such as electronic device 100 This description relates both to methods in general and also to steps for operating a device and for processing elec trical or other physical signals to generate other desired physi cal signals P
14. ces software and methods for a host elec See application file for complete search history tronic device such as a mobile phone PDA player etc In some embodiments a criterion is used to determine whether 56 References Cited a manual entry by the user was intended If not the entry is U S PATENT DOCUMENTS 4 859 100 A 8 1989 Carlson et al 5 987 311 A 11 1999 Phillips 310 RECEIVE MANUAL ENTRY 520 GENERATE USER SIGNAL FROM MANUAL ENTRY 530 MANUAL ENTRY INADVERTENT NO YES 550 CLEAR USER SIGNAL NO REGULAR USE i i 560 PRIOR ENTRY RECEIVED YES 5719 CLEAR USER SIGNAL OF PRIOR ENTRY cleared 35 Claims 4 Drawing Sheets 540 APPLY USER SIGNAL TO REGULAR USE U S Patent Apr 12 2011 Sheet 1 of 4 US 7 924 268 B2 142 WAS INTENTIONAL USER INPUT INTERFACE E G KEYS KEYPAD WHEEL ETC SET OF COMPONENTS OF HOST ELECTRONIC DEVICE FIGURE 1 200 280 220 HOST DEVICE IS FIGURE 2 WIRELESS TELEPHONE U S Patent Apr 12 2011 Sheet 2 of 4 US 7 924 268 B2 300 xN 380 320 FIGURE 3 HOST DEVICE IS PDA 400 Mia 480 420 HOST DEVICE IS PLAYER FIGURE 4 U S Patent Apr 12 2011 Sheet 3 of 4 US 7 924 268 B2 510 RECEIVE MANUAL ENTRY 520 GENERATE USER SIGNAL FROM MANUAL ENTRY 530 MANUAL ENTRY INADVERTENT YES 540 APPLY USER SIGNAL TO REGULAR USE 550 CLEAR USER SIGNAL NO REGULAR USE l NO 56 P
15. dium it should be clear to a person skilled in the art that it need not be a single memory or even a single machine Various portions modules or features of it may reside in separate memories or even separate machines The separate machines may be connected directly or through a network such as a local access network LAN or a global network such as the Internet It will be appreciated that some of these methods may include software steps which may be performed by different modules of an overall parts of a software architecture For example data forwarding in a router may be performed in a data plane which consults a local routing table Collection of performance data may also be performed in a data plane The performance data may be processed in a control plane which accordingly may update the local routing table in addition to neighboring ones A person skilled in the art will discern which step is best performed in which plane An economy is achieved in the present document in that a single set of flowcharts is used to describe both programs and also methods So while flowcharts are described in terms of boxes that depict operations they can mean both method and programs For this description the methods may be implemented by machine operations In other words embodiments of pro grams are made such that they perform methods of the inven tion that are described in this document These may be option ally performed in conjunct
16. e the method comprising generating signals in response to receipt of manual entries collectively storing the signals in a memory determining whether the signals comprise a sequence of identical signals exceeding a predetermined number of identical signals and clearing the sequence of identical signals from a memory one signal at a time in response to the number of iden tical signals exceeding the predetermined number of identical signals wherein clearing the sequence of iden tical signals begins with a most recently generated user signal before clearing an earlier generated user signal 21 The method of claim 20 further comprising storing a record corresponding to the signals and clearing the record when the signals are cleared 22 The method of claim 20 further comprising displaying an image corresponding to the identical signals and clearing the image in response to clearing the identical signals 23 The method of claim 22 further comprising displaying a warning message prior to clearing the image 24 The method of claim 23 wherein displaying the warn ing message prior to clearing the image further comprises displaying a countdown 25 A non transitory computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon the instructions comprising instructions for generating and storing in memory a data entry in response to receipt of a manual entry from a user interface wherein a long duration manual entry results in generati
17. embodiments FIG 6 isa table for explaining a sample operation of the set of components of FIG 1 according to an embodiment DETAILED DESCRIPTION As has been mentioned the present invention provides devices software and methods for electronic devices The invention is now described in more detail Referring now to FIG 1 a block diagram is now described for a set 100 of operational components of a host electronic device not shown in FIG 1 which is made according to embodiments A host electronic device having components 100 can be implemented in any number of applications as will be seen from the examples below Set 100 includes a user interface 120 Interface 120 is adapted to receive manual entries ME by movements of a user In addition interface 120 is adapted to generate electri cal user signals US responsive to receiving entries ME User signals US are designed to be applied to corresponding regu lar uses of the host device such as for entering data activating the device and so on Interface 120 can be made any number of ways examples of which will be described in more detail below In many embodiments interface 120 has one or more pushbuttons In some embodiments a number of the pushbuttons can be arranged in a keypad In some embodiments interface 120 includes a joystick In some embodiments interface 120 includes a wheel Sometimes the wheel can be turned to scroll quickly through possible entries Set 100 also
18. h results in another inadvertent manual entry Here pushbutton 1 has been pushed and the screen shows it along with the 4 The user however does not see it because they are not looking At this point the host device still does not know whether the 4 was intended or inadvertent and does not know about the 1 For all it knows the 1 could be intended and therefore so was the 4 so it stops the timer Ata later time T6 the user still does nothing with the device whose screen continues to show the inadvertent entries 41 The host device again starts the timer to develop a criterion such as for the 1 At a later time T7 while the user is still not looking the timer times out It is therefore determined that the 1 was inadvertent and it is cleared It is also erased from the screen and from any memory At a time T8 while the user is still not looking it is determined that since the 1 was inadvertent so was the 4 before it Therefore the 4 is also cleared Accordingly all digits have been cleared up to the last reset of time T1 The action of T8 can occur before after or concurrently with T7 While only two inadvertent entries are shown in table 600 that is by way of example and not of limitation 30 35 40 45 60 8 At a later time T9 the user looks again at the screen What they see is the regular standby message such as at time T2 They may
19. he user action is shown which could be inadvertent In the third column the action of an embodiment of the invention will appear In the next column in dashed lines there is shown what the screen of the host device shows The dashed lines are because the user does not see that unless they are looking at the screen The final column shows the screen at times that the user is actually looking These show blanks for when the user is not looking At a time T1 the user activated the host device e g by turning it on or reset it from using it In these instances the screen could show nothing or a welcome message which the user could see as they might be looking Ata time T2 shortly after time T1 the user stops looking at the screen of the host device and does other things The screen could show nothing or a standby message indicating the readiness to use the host device At a later time T3 the user inadvertently makes a move ment which results in an inadvertent manual entry Here pushbutton 4 has been pushed and the screen shows it The user however does not see it because they are not looking At a later time T4 the user does nothing with the device whose screen continues to show the first inadvertent entry 4 The host device does not know whether the 4 is intended or inadvertent and needs to develop a criterion So it starts a timer At a later time T5 the user inadvertently makes another movement whic
20. iments according to a next operation 540 the user signal is applied to the regular use This means that the host device operates regularly form the manual entry ME If at operation 530 it is determined that manual entry ME was inadvertent then in some embodiments according to a next operation 550 the user signal US is cleared This means that it is not applied to the regular use described in connection with operation 540 Clearing can be performed in a number of US 7 924 268 B2 7 ways such as described above In addition operations can be performed to warn the user that clearing is impending such as described above According to an optional operation 560 it is inquired whether a prior entry has been received It is preferred that all prior such entries are counted since the last reset activity which returned the host electronic device to a standby status If no prior entry has been received then execution returns to operation 510 If at operation 560 a prior entry has been received then according to an optional next operation 570 the prior entry and or its user signal is cleared Then execution can return to operation 560 to clear additional prior entries FIG 6 is a table 600 for explaining a sample operation of set 100 of the components of a host device according to an embodiment of flowchart 500 Table 600 has rows showing successive time entries and columns showing what happens during those times In the second column t
21. ion with one or more human operators performing some but not all of them As per the above the users need not be collocated with each other but each only with a machine that houses a portion of the pro gram Alternately some of these machines may operate auto matically without users and or independently from each other Methods of the invention are now described Referring now to FIG 5 a flowchart 500 is used to illus trate a method according to another embodiment of the inven tion The method of flowchart 500 may also be practiced by set 100 and any electronic device that hosts set 100 such as telephone 200 PDA 300 player 400 and so on According to an operation 510 a manual entry ME is received from a user This can be in an interface 120 as described above and could be inadvertent meaning not intended by the user According to a next operation 520 a user signal US is generated from manual entry ME This can be from interface 120 as described above As also per the above user signal US is intended for a regular use by the host device if the entry is intended According to a next operation 530 it is determined whether manual entry ME was inadvertent In other words whether it was performed according to a corresponding intention of the user This determining is performed according to one or more criteria such as described above If at operation 530 it is determined that manual entry ME was intended then in some embod
22. less of how a manual entry ME is deemed inadvert ent processor 140 can clear its corresponding user signal US Clearing is such that user signal US is prevented from being applied to the regular use Clearing can be further imple mented in a number of additional ways such as described later in this document In some embodiments set 100 is adapted to perform a number of additional operations before clearing the entries that have been deemed inadvertent For example it can issue a warning prompt to the user prior to clearing to the effect that clearing is impending The prompt could give a deadline for the user to react such as by making another entry If not clearing can be performed responsive to the deadline expir ing The deadline can be expressed as a countdown Set 100 also optionally includes a memory 160 Memory 160 may be implemented in any way known in the art for such host electronic devices 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 4 In some embodiments processor 140 stores its own pro gram to execute In other embodiments at least a portion ofits program is stored in memory 160 In some embodiments memory 160 provided for storing the programs of processor 140 is also the same memory as the one provided for imple menting other functions of the host device In addition in some embodiments memory 160 can store parameters relating to operation of the invention For example memory 160 can store a reco
23. ng a plurality of data entries instructions for measuring a time lapse since receipt of a most recent manual entry during which no subsequent data entry is generated instructions for comparing the time lapse to a first timeout period instructions for clearing a most recent data entry generated in response to the most recent manual entry from the memory in response to the time lapse exceeding the first timeout period instructions for measuring a second time lapse since clear ing the most recent data entry during which a data entry is not generated instructions for comparing the second time lapse to a sec ond timeout period and instructions for clearing a data entry generated before the most recent data entry in response to the second time lapse exceeding the second timeout period 26 The non transitory computer readable medium of claim 25 further comprising instructions for storing a record corresponding to the data entry and clearing the record when the data entry is cleared 27 The non transitory computer readable medium of claim 25 further comprising instructions for displaying an image corresponding to the data entry and clearing the image in response to clearance of the data entry 28 The non transitory computer readable medium of claim 27 further comprising instructions for displaying a warning message prior to clearing the image US 7 924 268 B2 11 29 The non transitory computer readable medium of claim 28
24. ntries A typical such interface is a keypad For example personal digital assistants have keypads for entering charac ters along with other controls For another example cellular telephones cell phones or mobile telephones have key pads for dialing numbers along with activation keys that effectuate dialing and other functions Other devices such as iPOD type players have rotary interfaces and so on A problem with such interfaces is that entries can be received inadvertently from movements of the user For example when someone wears a cell phone on their person they might later discover from the screen that certain buttons have been pressed inadvertently They must then clear the inadvertent entries It is even more of a problem when an activation key has been pressed inadvertently For example if it is a telephone an inadvertently dialed number has been called Some solutions have been proposed for preventing inad vertently manual entries For example U S Pat No 4 859 100 provides a keypad with partitions between the keys This can require more space to implement the keypad Others of these solutions have required users to take more steps For example a manual cover over a keypad can be opened Or a soft lock feature can be implemented where a password needs to be dialed first Examples of these include US Pat Nos 6 630 927 and 5 987 311 Users can grow impatient when they are required to take more step
25. rd corresponding to the first manual entry When the first signal is cleared however the record is erased from the memory Set 100 also optionally includes a screen 180 for viewing by the user Screen 180 may be implemented in any way known in the art for such host electronic devices In some embodiments screen 180 can show images corre sponding to the manual entries ME received via interface 120 When the first signal is cleared however the images are erased from screen 180 In some of those embodiments screen 180 can also convey operations of the invention For example it can convey prompts that an entry is going to be cleared and that the user should react The prompt can be that the shown image is flashing it can include a countdown and so on The host device not shown in FIG 1 for set 100 of components can be implemented in any number of ways for any number of functions Some non limiting examples are now described to demonstrate the wide array of applications FIG 2 is a perspective diagram of a wireless cellular tele phone 200 Telephone 200 is the host electronic device for set 100 of the components of FIG 1 according to embodiments Telephone 200 has an interface 220 which includes a key pad with pushbuttons Interface 220 operates similarly to the above described interface 120 Telephone 200 also has a screen 280 similarly to the above described screen 180 In some embodiments the user s manual entries that are
26. rograms are additionally included in this description as are methods of operation of the programs A program is generally defined as a group of steps leading to a desired result due to their nature and their sequence A program is usually advantageously implemented as a program for a com puting machine such as a general purpose computer a spe cial purpose computer a microprocessor etc Storage media are additionally included in this description Such media individually or in combination with others have stored thereon instructions of a program made according to the invention A storage medium according to the invention is a tangible computer readable medium such as a memory and is read by the computing machine mentioned above Performing the steps or instructions of a program requires physical manipulations of physical quantities Usually though not necessarily these quantities may be transferred combined compared and otherwise manipulated or pro cessed according to the instructions and they may also be stored in a computer readable medium These quantities include for example electrical magnetic and electromag netic signals and also states of matter that can be queried by such signals It is convenient at times principally for reasons of common usage to refer to these quantities as bits data bits samples values symbols characters images terms num bers or the like It should be borne in mind however that all of
27. s and even neglect to take them After all taking more steps is just what they had to do to clear the inadvertent entries anyway BRIEF SUMMARY The present invention overcomes these problems and limi tations of the prior art Generally the present invention provides electronic devices software and methods for electronic devices In some embodiments manual entries by the user are cleared if it becomes determined that they were potentially inadvertent Some embodiments offer the advantage that such entries are cleared without the user needing to take more steps In fact sometimes clearing can be discreet without the user even finding out The invention will become more readily apparent from the following Detailed Description which proceeds with refer ence to the drawings in which BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG 1 is a block diagram of a set of operational compo nents of a host electronic device according to embodiments an 5 20 25 40 45 50 55 65 2 FIG 2 is a perspective diagram of a wireless cellular tele phone hosting the set of components of FIG 1 according to embodiments FIG 3 is a perspective diagram ofa Personal Digital Assis tant hosting the set of components of FIG 1 according to embodiments FIG 4 is a perspective diagram of an electronic player hosting the set of components of FIG 1 according to embodi ments FIG 5 is a flowchart illustrating method according to
28. t The rationale is that the user can make a number of inadvertent entries ME if the last one is found inadvertent then all the prior ones can be so found since the last reset So they can be cleared all at once or equivalently one at a time It should be noted from this example is that different criteria can be applied to different entries from a group of even successive entries One more such criterion is that a number of successive entries are the same especially if they are the last received For example a pushbutton may be pushed for a long time causing the same entry to be made a number of times That can be deemed unintentional in a number of instances such as when a telephone number is to be dialed Yet one more criterion can be to request confirmation This is particularly advantageously applied where the first regular use is to activate the device beyond merely dialing numbers Activating could be for the host device to generate a wireless transmission which can encode a telephone number that is to be dialed or a network address that is to be accessed The confirmation can be by issuing another prompt to the user and so on Moreover criteria can be made by combining one or more of the above criteria For example when two or more similar entries are received successively a timeout period can be waited for Further since these are more likely inadvertent than a single entry the duration can be shortened and so on Regard
29. these and similar terms are associated with the appropriate physical quantities and that these terms are merely conve nient labels applied to these physical quantities individually or in groups This detailed description is presented largely in terms of flowcharts display images algorithms and symbolic repre sentations of operations of data bits within at least one com puter readable medium such as a memory Indeed such descriptions and representations are the type of convenient labels used by those skilled in programming and or the data processing arts to effectively convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art A person skilled in the art of programming may use these descriptions to readily generate specific instructions for implementing a program according to the present invention Often for the sake of convenience only it is preferred to implement and describe a program as various interconnected distinct software modules or features individually and col lectively also known as software This is not necessary how ever and there may be cases where modules are equivalently aggregated into a single program with unclear boundaries In an 5 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 6 any event the software modules or features of this description may be implemented by themselves or in combination with others Even though it is said that the program may be stored in a computer readable me
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