Avoiding accidental cursor movement when contacting a surface of a trackpad

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016306449-A1
Application number	US-201514688645-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Apr 16, 2015
Priority date	Apr 16, 2015
Publication date	Oct 20, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

In one general aspect, a method can include identifying a contact on a surface of a trackpad of a computing device, calculating a value of a first speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad, calculating a value of a total distance moved by the contact along the surface of the trackpad, and blocking movement of a cursor on a display device based on determining that the value of the first speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad is less than a fast threshold speed, and based on determining that the value of the total distance moved by the contact along the surface of the trackpad is less than a threshold distance value.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A method comprising:
identifying a contact on a surface of a trackpad of a computing device; calculating a value of a first speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad; calculating a value of a total distance moved by the contact along the surface of the trackpad; and blocking movement of a cursor on a display device based on determining that the value of the first speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad is less than a fast threshold speed, and based on determining that the value of the total distance moved by the contact along the surface of the trackpad is less than a threshold distance value.

2 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
calculating a value of a previous speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad before calculating the value of the first speed of movement; and blocking movement of the cursor on the display device included in the computing device, based on determining that the calculated value of the previous speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad is equal to or less than a slow threshold speed.

3 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
calculating a value of a previous speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad before calculating the value of the first speed of movement; and allowing movement of the cursor on the display device included in the computing device, based on determining that the calculated value of the previous speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad is greater than a slow threshold speed.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein blocking movement of a cursor on a display device includes blocking scrolling of information on the display device.

5 . The method of claim 1 ,
wherein the method further includes allowing movement of a cursor on a display device included in the computing device, based on determining that the value of the first speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad is equal to or greater than the fast threshold speed.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein calculating a value of a first speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad comprises calculating the value of the first speed of movement of the contact to be a distance between a current (x,y) coordinate and a previous (x,y) coordinate over a period of time.

7 . The method of claim 6 , wherein the period of time is the time between two frames of input data.

8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein calculating a value of a total distance moved by the contact along the surface of the trackpad comprises calculating the value of the total distance to be an accumulated sum of distances moved by the contact along the surface of the trackpad.

9 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the method further includes allowing movement of a cursor on a display device included in the computing device, based on determining that the value of the total distance moved by the contact along the surface of the trackpad is greater than or equal to the threshold distance value.

10 . A non-transitory, machine-readable medium having instructions stored thereon, the instructions, when executed by a processor, cause a computing device to:
identify a contact on a surface of a trackpad of a computing device; calculate a value of a first speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad; calculate a value of a total distance moved by the contact along the surface of the trackpad; and block movement of a cursor on a display device based on determining that the value of the first speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad is less than a fast threshold speed, and based on determining that the value of the total distance moved by the contact along the surface of the trackpad does not exceed a threshold distance value.

11 . The medium of claim 10 , wherein the instructions, when executed by a processor, further cause the computing device to:
calculate a value of a previous speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad before calculating the value of the first speed of movement; and block movement of the cursor on the display device included in the computing device, based on determining that the calculated value of the previous speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad is equal to or less than a slow threshold speed.

12 . The medium of claim 10 , wherein the instructions, when executed by a processor, further cause the computing device to further comprising:
calculate a value of a previous speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad before calculating the value of the first speed of movement; and allow movement of the cursor on the display device included in the computing device, based on determining that the calculated value of the previous speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad is greater than a slow threshold speed.

13 . The medium of claim 10 , wherein blocking movement of a cursor on a display device includes blocking scrolling of information on the display device.

14 . The medium of claim 10 , wherein the instructions, when executed by the processor, further cause the computing device to:
allow movement of a cursor on a display device included in the computing device, based on determining that the value of the first speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad is equal to or greater than the fast threshold speed.

15 . The medium of claim 10 , wherein the instructions, when executed by the processor, that cause the computing device to calculate a value of a first speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad include instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the computing device to calculate the value of the first speed of movement of the contact to be a distance between a current (x,y) coordinate and a previous (x,y) coordinate over a period of time.

16 . The medium of claim 15 , wherein the period of time is the time between two frames of input data.

17 . The medium of claim 10 , wherein the instructions, when executed by the processor, that cause the computing device to calculate a value of a total distance moved by the contact along the surface of the trackpad further include instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the computing device to calculate the value of the total distance to be an accumulated sum of distances moved by the contact along the surface of the trackpad.

18 . The medium of claim 10 , wherein the instructions, when executed by the processor, further cause the computing device to allow movement of a cursor on a display device included in the computing device, based on determining that the value of the total distance moved by the contact along the surface of the trackpad is greater than or equal to the threshold distance value.

19 . A trackpad comprising:
a surface; a sensor operatively coupled to the surface and configured to identify a contact on the surface of the trackpad; a controller operatively coupled to the sensor and configured to:
calculate a value of a first speed of movement of the contact along the surface of the trackpad; and
calculate a value of a total distance moved by the contact along the surface of the trackpad;
a bus operatively coupled to the controller; a kernel driver configured to communicate with the bus; and a gesture library configured to

Assignees

• Google Inc

Inventors

• De Los Reyes Andrew

Classifications

• G06F3/038

  Control and interface arrangements therefor, e.g. drivers or device-embedded control circuitry · CPC title

• G06F3/03547 Primary

  Touch pads, in which fingers can move on a surface · CPC title

• G06F3/04186 Primary

  Touch location disambiguation · CPC title

• G06F3/0416

  Control or interface arrangements specially adapted for digitisers · CPC title

• G06F3/0418

  for error correction or compensation, e.g. based on parallax, calibration or alignment · CPC title