Patent ID: 8754746

Claim:
A method for operating a game controller to identify a user, the method comprising: receiving touch pad input from at least one touch sensitive pad of the game controller that has a plurality of touch sensitive elements, the touch pad input corresponding to the user's touch of at least some of the plurality of touch sensitive elements; performing first processing operations on the touch pad input by processing circuitry of the game controller to produce partially processed touch pad input; wirelessly transmitting the partially processed touch pad input to a game console via a communications interface of the game controller for performing second processing operations on the partially processed touch pad input by the game console, the game console configured to produce fully processed touch pad input for pattern recognition of a user characteristic; using user preference information and the fully processed touch pad input to identify the user, the user preference information including game selection, game settings, time of day, day of week, game play duration, game usage level, and auxiliary game controller selection; and altering user identification operations for: initial user identification operations with which full user identification verification is required; intermediate user identification operations with which partial user identification verification is required; and automatic user identification operations without requiring user identification verification.