Patent ID: 8581853

Claim:
A method comprising: measuring a capacitance value associated with each of a plurality of conductive traces, each of the plurality of conductive traces having a first end and a second end, wherein at least one of the plurality of conductive traces has a greater surface area near the first end than near the second end; measuring a capacitance value associated with a guard sensor trace; determining whether to process a detected user action as user input based on a comparison between the capacitance value associated with the guard sensor trace and a capacitance value associated with at least one of the plurality of conductive traces; processing the user action as the user input, the processing including: determining that a ratio from the capacitance values associated with each of the plurality of conductive traces is within one of a plurality of ratio ranges stored in a memory; and identifying a location of the user input on the plurality of conductive traces, wherein the location corresponds to the one ratio range of the plurality of ratio ranges that the ratio is determined to be within.