Patent ID: 7969426

Claim:
A method for operating a display interface of a computing device, the method comprising: detecting a variation in light that is directed onto and through a display screen of the display interface; identifying a characteristic of the light variation that is directed onto and through the display screen, wherein identifying the characteristic of the light variation includes detecting a dimension or shape of the light variation; and making a determination as to whether the variation in light is to be interpreted as an input or to be ignored based on the characteristic, wherein making the determination as to whether the variation in light is to be interpreted as an input or to be ignored based on the characteristic includes making the determination that the variation is an input based on the shape of the light variation correlating to a tip portion of an object; causing the display interface to emit light that has a particular characteristic, and wherein identifying a variation in light includes detecting the particular characteristic reflected back to the display interface from an object that is configured to reflect the particular characteristic back, and wherein making a determination as to whether the variation in light is to be interpreted as an input includes interpreting the variation in light as the input when the detected characteristic includes the particular characteristic reflected back.