Patent Document ID: 20080235003
Application ID: 12050840
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. A process to facilitate user entry of Chinese logographic text via computer having a display and a multi-key keypad, the process comprising operations of: the computer receiving user entry of a series of key presses representing a corresponding series of letters collectively spelling-out an intended series of one or more phonetic entries from predetermined dictionary, where each dictionary entry represents a phonetic representation of one or more Chinese characters; where the key presses are inherently ambiguous because, according to a predetermined mapping, at least some of the specific keys represent multiple letters; during the course of receiving the series of key presses, the computer performing operations comprising: interpreting the series of key presses to identify a corresponding series of dictionary entries spelled out by the series of key presses; maintaining and displaying a collection buffer containing the series of dictionary entries according to a current interpretation; presenting Chinese characters corresponding to at least a first dictionary entry of the collection buffer; maintaining and displaying an output buffer accumulating user selections of presented Chinese characters, in order of selection; where the key presses whose interpretation formed a final dictionary entry in the collection buffer constitute a current segment, and key presses whose interpretation formed a next-to-last dictionary entry in the collection buffer constitute a previous segment; where the interpreting operation includes, in response to each new key press, the computer responding by performing operations as follows: the computer identifying all possible strings of letters spelled out by the key presses of the current segment appended by the new key press, and determining which if any identified string forms a recognized entry in the dictionary; upon success of the determining operation, changing the final entry in the collection buffer to one of the recognized entries; upon failure of the determining operation, shifting key presses one-by-one from the previous segment to the current segment appended by the new key press, and with each shift, performing operations comprising: for each of the previous segment as shifted and the current segment appended by the new key press as shifted, performing a test to identify all possible strings of letters spelled out by respective segment, and determining which if any of the identified strings forms a recognized entry in the dictionary; performing one of the following: as soon as the test determines that letters of the previous segment and the current segment appended by the new key press respectively spell out recognized entries in the dictionary, discontinuing further shifting and revising the collection buffer to present said recognized entries; continuing the shifting to exhaust all shifting possibilities, evaluating the recognized entries against a predetermined quality popularity criteria, and for each of the current and previous segments as shifted choosing a recognized entry preferred by the criteria, and revising the collection buffer to preferred entries for the segments.