Patent ID: 7429932

Claim:
A method of identifying a code set used by a remote control unit for controlling an electronic device, comprising: receiving a transmission, representing a code that identifies a first user input, from the remote control unit, the first user input being one of a plurality of different user inputs having codes that can be transmitted by the remote control unit, each different user input corresponding to a different operation to be performed by the electronic device; comparing the code against a plurality of stored code sets each stored code set having a plurality of stored codes, wherein each of the plurality of stored codes in each stored code set corresponds to one of the different operations to be performed by the electronic device; identifying, as a matching code set, a stored code set having a stored code matching the code received from the remote control unit that identifies the first user input; wherein identifying a stored code set as a matching stored code set further comprises: determining whether there is more, than one matching code set; if there is more than one matching code set, then determining whether any of the matching code sets have a disambiguating code for a subsequent user input that differs between at least two of the matching code sets for the subsequent user input; if one of the matching code sets has a disambiguating code, then prompting the user for the subsequent user input corresponding to the disambiguating code; receiving the disambiguating code from the user based on the subsequent user input; and comparing the disambiguating code against the matching code sets to disambiguate at least two of the matching code sets; and controlling the electronic device to perform the plurality of different operations based on received codes in the matching code set.