Patent ID: 7855716

Claim:
A method of determining the location of a touch event within a display area surrounded by a touch frame having a plurality of light emitting elements and a plurality of light receiving elements forming a plurality of triangular zones of light beam paths, each triangular zone being defined by the portion of the display area between (a) a light beam path extending from a light emitting element at one end of a row of light emitting elements to a single light receiving element and (b) a light beam path extending from a light emitting element at the other end of the row of light emitting elements to the single light receiving element, the number and positioning of receivers being sufficient to form partially overlapping zone pairs such that the touch event lies entirely within at least two zone pairs, said method comprising: monitoring each of the zone pairs for blockage of at least one light beam path, wherein monitoring comprises: comparing the profile of the output to an expected profile having a time-based noise threshold; identifying a light beam as noise if there is a pulse edge in the profile prior to the noise threshold; identifying a light beam as connected if there is a pulse edge in the profile after the noise threshold; and identifying all other light beams as blocked; and upon such blockage, calculating the location of the touch event associated with the blockage based on the slopes and end points of at least two intersecting blocked light beam paths from a first zone pair and two intersecting blocked light beam paths from a second zone pair.