Patent ID: 7159191

Claim:
A method for inputting characters into a terminal adapted to operate in a first mode using a one-touch entry technique, whereby when inputting characters of a word by pressing multi-tap keys, a word form prediction generated by a word predictive engine is displayed in response to each tap, and in a second mode using a multi-tap entry technique, whereby in response to each consecutive tap of a multi-tap key, one character from a group of characters assigned to the multi-tap key is displayed, the method comprising the steps of: in response to the a deletion of a character a) the first mode is changed to an intermediate mode, which is a combination of the second mode and the word predictive engine, and b) a previous predicted word form is returned by the predictive engine, in response to a further deletion of a character from the previous predicted word form, a next previous predicted word form is returned by the predictive engine, and in response to pressing any key for an input of a character in the intermediate mode, said mode is changed to the second mode.