Patent ID: 8489383
Filing Date: 2013-07-16
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A method of disambiguating an input into a handheld electronic device, the handheld electronic device including an input apparatus, an output apparatus, and a memory having a plurality of objects stored therein, the plurality of objects including a plurality of language objects and a plurality of frequency objects, each of at least a portion of the language objects of the plurality of language objects being associated with an associated frequency object of the plurality of frequency objects, the plurality of language objects including a plurality of word objects and a plurality of n-gram objects, substantially each n-gram object of the plurality of n-gram objects including at least a first character, the input apparatus including a plurality of input members, each of at least a portion of the input members of the plurality of input members having a plurality of characters assigned thereto, the method comprising: detecting an ambiguous input including a number of input member actuations of a number of the input members of the plurality of input members, each of at least a portion of the input members of the number of input members including a number of characters assigned thereto, at least one of the input members of the number of input members having a plurality of characters assigned thereto; generating a number of prefix objects corresponding with the ambiguous input, each prefix object of the number of prefix objects including a number of the characters of the number of the input members of the ambiguous input, including a first prefix object with a spelling and having all lower case letters and a second prefix object having the same spelling and having at least one capital letter; generating a result by, for each prefix object of the number of prefix objects, including the first prefix object and the second prefix object, separately identifying a word object of the plurality of word objects, the identified word object corresponding with the prefix object, obtaining an associated frequency object of the plurality of frequency objects, the associated frequency object being associated with the identified word object and having a frequency value, and associating the frequency value of the associated frequency object with the prefix object; for at least a portion of the prefix objects of the result, generating an output set of the prefix objects sorted according to the frequency values associated therewith, at least a portion of the output set including the first prefix object and the second prefix object; determining that the result includes a quantity of prefix objects, determining if the quantity of prefix objects in the result is fewer than a predetermined quantity, and if it is determined that the quantity of prefix objects is fewer than the predetermined quantity, adding as an orphan prefix object to the output set at a position corresponding with a relatively low frequency a prefix object of the number of prefix objects for which a corresponding word object of the plurality of word objects was not identified; and outputting an output including the prefix objects of at least a portion of the output set organized in descending order of frequency value.