Patent ID: 8144128

Claim:
A touch panel comprising: a lower conductive film of a transparent conductive material formed on a substrate of an insulating material; four electrodes disposed in edge portions of four sides of the lower conductive film in order to generate a potential distribution in the lower conductive film; and an upper conductive film of the transparent conductive material disposed over the lower conductive film so that the upper conductive film and the lower conductive film are opposed to each other to detect an electric potential in the lower conductive film when the upper conductive film is in contact with the lower conductive film, wherein the upper conductive film includes a plurality of split portions containing no transparent conductive material and a plurality of split conductive portions divided by the plurality of split portions and containing the transparent conductive material, and wherein the touch panel is arranged to detect an electric potential of each of contact points in the plurality of split conductive portions when the upper and lower conductive films are brought in contact with each other at the contact points, so that respective coordinates of the contact points are detected based on the detected electrical potentials.