Patent ID: 8201087
Filing Date: 2012-06-12
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A text input apparatus, comprising: a user input device comprising an auto-correcting keyboard region comprising a plurality of the characters of an alphabet, wherein each of the plurality of characters corresponds to a location with known coordinates in the auto-correcting keyboard region, wherein each time a user contacts the user input device within the auto-correcting keyboard region, a location associated with the user contact is determined and the determined contact location is added to a current input sequence of contact locations; a memory containing a plurality of objects, wherein each object is further associated with a frequency of use, and wherein each of the plurality of objects in memory is further associated with one or a plurality of predefined groupings of objects; an output device with a text display area; and a processor that receives as an input sequence a series of one or more of said input values from said input device; said processor programmed to execute a set-edit-distance algorithm to calculate a matching metric between said input sequence and a candidate string, to access a database to retrieve one or more candidate strings, to calculate said set-edit-distance between said input sequence and a candidate string by comparing sets of possible characters corresponding to said input sequence with characters in the candidate string, and to output one or more candidate strings ranked by matching metric; wherein if a candidate string character is in a set of said sets of possible characters per input, set-edit-distance does not increase; and wherein if a candidate string character is not in said set of possible characters per input, set-edit-distance is increased according to a predetermined rule, said processor coupled to the user input device, memory, and output device.