Patent ID: 7123241

Claim:
A computer keyboard, comprising: a frame; a plurality of keys located on the frame, each key of the plurality lying on its own movement axis and having pressed and unpressed positions along that movement axis; a plurality of force sensors coupled to the frame and configured such that at least a portion of a force applied by a user to one or more keys of the plurality is transferred to the force sensors, the force sensors generating outputs that vary in relation to the magnitude of the user-applied force, wherein the plurality of force sensors are not located on any of the movement axes; and a microprocessor in electrical communication with the force sensors and configured, upon a user pressing multiple keys of the plurality, to detect simultaneous presses of multiple keys and identify the pressed keys, receive output data from the force sensors resulting from the simultaneous key presses, and determine forces pressing each of the pressed keys based on the output data from the force sensors and relative locations of the pressed keys and the force sensors.