Patent ID: 7844914

Claim:
A method of operating a touch screen to activate a virtual GUI item, comprising: displaying a plurality of activatable virtual GUI items on the touch screen, wherein at least one of the activatable virtual GUI items in the plurality of activatable virtual GUI items has a corresponding set of greater than one GUI item locations; determining a touch location based on location data pertaining to touch input on the touch screen, wherein the touch input is intended to activate one of the plurality of activatable virtual GUI items; for each of the plurality of activatable virtual GUI items, determining a distance parameter for that respective activatable virtual GUI item that relates the touch location and one or more GUI item locations corresponding to that respective activatable virtual GUI item, wherein: determining the distance parameter for each of the at least one activatable virtual GUI items having a corresponding set of greater than one GUI item locations includes for each of these GUI item locations corresponding to that activatable virtual GUI item, determining a distance parameter relating the touch location and that GUI item location, and processing the determined distance parameters for each of the set of greater than one GUI item locations corresponding to that activatable virtual GUI item to determine the distance parameter for that activatable virtual GUI item, and the distance parameter for each of the at least one activatable virtual GUI items having a corresponding set of greater than one GUI item locations is a statistical parameter characterizing the distribution of the GUI item locations within the set of greater than one GUI item locations corresponding to that activatable virtual GUI item; processing the determined distance parameters of the plurality of activatable virtual GUI items to determine one of the activatable virtual GUI items; and generating a signal indicating activation of the determined one of the activatable virtual GUI items.