Patent ID: 7441202

Claim:
A method for operating a graphical user interface, comprising: segmenting a display surface of the graphical user interface into a plurality of regions, in which the display surface is touch-sensitive, and associating a set of unique, non-overlapping locations with each region, such that the regions completely tile the display surface, and in which the display surface is segmented into a layout region, a cutting region, a resizing region, and an annotating region; defining a set of actions that can be performed by the graphical user interface; defining each action as a touch gesture, such that the same touch gestures are interpreted as different modes of operating the graphical user interface depending the locations touched; selecting a document to be displayed on the display surface; moving the document to a particular location; and performing a particular action of the set of actions on the selected object according to the particular location of the object on the display surface to operate the graphical user interface in one of a plurality of modes for the particular action, and in which the object is a document moved to the cutting region, and in which the document is cut along a horizontal straight line passing through the location touched by one finger and extending to both vertical edges of the document.