Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
CA 02465546 2004-05-06
Description
BACKGROUND OF TI-II: INVENTION
'fhe present invention relates to the w°earable and portable keyboards,
particularly a one~hand
operable and vertically modified wearable and portable keyboard that is
secured onto a
person's thigh.
Today's keypads of the I'DAs and cell phones are so small and compact that we
leave to
operate them by our thumbs or a stylus. Of course, f'DAs are popular because
they are
smaller, more portable and cheaper alternatives to computers and laptops.
,And, sending small
massages over the cell phones is very popular these days because of its
portability. These are
the reasons why people are willing to type onto these electronic devices with
hardship. Even
they are using short-hand to use less amount of alphabets when sending short
massages to
each other over the cell phones.
Of course there are portable, flexible, and foldable keyboards Which are
pocket sized and can
be used anywhere and whenever you want to type a text into a PDA. Some
examples are the
new flexible keyboards or the rigid and foldable keyboards. T'he limitation
with these portable
keyboards is that you still need a supporting rigid desktop to use them. Even
there is an
invention called stealth keypad with only a few keys to control and enter a
text, and, based on
its inventor(s), it is concealed inside the palm of a person's hand. But this
keypad comes short
in case of the speed of typing a text and they are not in common use because
of the
complexity of the key representation.
In spite of all advances in speed of downloading and uploading, still when it
comes to typing
a paragraph of text info a cell phone or a Personal Digital Assistant (I DA)
on a train, on a
bus, or on a bench at the park we arc at the speed of turtles.
In shorrt, we need an inputting device that is portable, flexible, and even
stealthy and can be
used without any external rigid desk. In addition, the size of the keys on the
keyboard should
be as large as our fingers to make the experience of typing as comfortable as
possible with
less error.
'Then we may only need a cell phone or a wireless PDA to send and receive
information,
which can be stored locally on a memory flash card, or it can be stored
remotely on a
computer at home, at office, or even on storage devices provided by the data-
storage specialty
companies.
SUMMERY OF THE INVENTION
The wearable and portable keyboard according to the invention is a vertically
moditic:d,
touchable keyboard, which is strapped onto a person's thigh as shown in I~IG.
2. ~fhe
keyboard is designed to be operated by single hand only. but the necessary
keys are the same
as a standard touchable desktop computer keyboard (the function keys are not
crucial for oi.~r
applications but can be embedded into the keyboard design if needed) .
CA 02465546 2004-05-06
The key sizes on this inventive and original keyboard (1) are the same as our
finger sizes.
Figures are not to scale. Furthermore, I also propose to make these inventive,
keyboards in
three different sizes such as small, medium. and large, naturally, because
people leave
different finger sizes.
In addition, the alphabetic letters on this keyboard are separated from other
characters. 'this
arrangement will make typing easier and faster even without looking at the
keyboard after
people get used to the keyboard.
A difference between this innovative keyboard and a regular keyboard is that
the key
sequence (ABODE ) on this keyboard is the same as the English alphabetic
order, as op pose tea
a (:2 W ER~fY conventional keyboard.
The alternative designs ofthis keyboard are shown in FIG. 3, FIG., FIGS, and
FIG.6. We
can make the arrangement of the keys on the keyboard to make it longer and
with less width
(FIG. i, F'IG.6) or to make them shorter and with more width (FIG. 4, FIGS ).
Nonetheless, all of these keyboards are equipped with an embedded pressure
sensitive area
(5). Still an alternative to a touchpad is to make these keyboards to include
a small trackball.
The buffer (2) immediately under the keyboard and above the base is made of a
hand and rigid
material to make the data entry accurate. Of course, the buffer can be made of
a less rigid
material based on customers need. 1n addition, the buffer may be segmented to
make the
keyboards foldable. The base and straps (3) of this unique keybaard is made of
soft plastic or
rubber or a durable and waterproof fabric. The locking mechanism (4) is made
in many
conceivable shapes and forms. Some of the variations are like those protective
gears' locking
mechanism, or belt buckles.
Another variation of the key°bc~ard can be made of transparent material
such as durable
plastics or the new polymers. The electrical contacts inside each transparent
key are either
transparent themselves, made of the ~~ew available conductive polymers, or non-
transparent
but very thin cupper wires. We prefer the transparent variation of the
keyboard because it is
stealthy. Because these keyboards are almost invisible their base, straps, and
locking
mechanism can also be transparent plastic or polymers. Furthermore, these
transparent
keyboards can also be made to stick to the clothing by means of fabric-
adhesive. The
keyboa~°d is pilled off whenever is necessary and put backed on the
clothing as needed.
Basically, any variation of materials can be used for the base of the
keyboard, but the
keyboard itself must be water-proof, light, durable, and reusable to make this
inventive
product popular and in common use.
Another variation to make these keyboards even more stealthy is to wear them
underneath the
clothing like elastic sport shorts' legs. In this case, special attention must
be made to the
material of the base. Obviously, this variation is more attractive for
experienced keyboard
users who type without looking at the keyboard. Furthermore, attention must be
made in
designing the circuitry of these keyboards to make them heat tolerant because
of the body
heat.
CA 02465546 2004-05-06
~hhe manually entered text and data is sent to the cell phone, PDA, or any
electronic device by
means of either a separable keyboard cable (e.g. USB cable, RS-232), or mare
conveniently
wirelessly. The keyboard circuitry can send data to the devices wirelessly
using already
available technologies such as the Blue-Tooth or a radio hrequency (RF)
transceiver.
However, attention must be made to the security of the data on the wireless
case. For
example, the data must be coded for each individual keyboard. The coding
password may be
hard-coded in the keyboard circuitry or can be changed as frequent as need by
the owners of
the keyboards. The integrated circuitry used inside these keyboards is made of
durable
flexible circuit boards.
CA 02465546 2004-05-06
DESCRIPTION OF 'fHE DRAWINGS
12
FIG.I is a side view of a person in sitting position holding an electronic
device in one hand and
operating (typing and navigating) it with other hand by using our invention,
keyboard and touch pad
or roller-ball, attached to the other leg.
FICr.2 is a front view of a person sitting down on a bench and holding an
electronic device such as a
cell phone, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), or a portable hand-held
computer in one hand and
operating it with the other hand by using our inventive keyboard ( 1 )
attached 011to the person's
opposite leg.
FIG. 3 is a top view of the wearable keyboard with a touch ,pad or a roller-
ball on its top right side;
and the leg straps (3) with a locking mechanism are shown on each side of the
keyboard and are not
to scale. This is the first of many varieties of designs of key configuration
for our wearable, one-
hand operable keyboard. The key configuration resembles a matrix format. This
particular format is
comprised of 5 columns and 17 rows. Alpha characters are conveniently located
at the middle of
keyboard without any other characters sharing their space. The numeric
characters are at the top
rows of the alpha character keys. Control characters as well as special
characters are located at the
bottom of the alpha character keys.
FIG. 4 is a top view of the wearable keyboard with a touch pad or a roller-
ball on its top right side
and control characters are located at the bottom of the wearable, one-hand
operable keyboard. 'this
keyboard-matrix format is comprised of 6 columns and 15 rows. Alpha characters
are purposely
located at the bottom of the middle of keyboard. This particular keyboard
arrangement would
convenience those who type more alpha characters than any other characters.
FIG. 5 is a top view of the wearable keyboard with a touch pad or a roller-
ball on its top right side
and control characters are located at the bottom of the one-hand operable
keyboard. The matrix
format on this keyboard is comprised of 6 columns and 15 rows. The arrangement
of the keys is
basically the same as keyboard depicted in FIG. 4, except the location of tl~e
numeric keys and
alpha keys are moved up two rows.
FIG. 6 is a top view of the wearable keyboard with a touch pad or a roller-
ball on its top right side
and control characters are located at the bottom of the one-hand operable
keyboard. The matrix
format on this keyboard is comprised of 5 columns and 17 rows. Alpha
characters are located
conveniently on the left-hand side the keyboard. And numeric. keys are on the
right-side of the alpha
characters. The Insert, Home, Delete, PageDown, PageUp, Esc, arrow keys, and
the other characters
found on a regular computer or a Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) are located
on the right-hand
side of the keyboard. In addition, the control characters are located on the
bottom of the keyboard.
FIG. 7 is a side view of the whole one-hand operatable keyboard. Part [ 1 ) is
the keyboard itself. Part
[2] is a hard piece of material to make typing more accurate. Part [3] is the
strap. And part [4] is a
buckle to fasten the straps together in order to secure the keyboard apparatus
on the operator's
upper-leg. Please. note that the keyboard also can be attached onto keyboard
operator's clothing. Or
the keyboard can be sewn into a person's piece of clothing.
This application claims priority from previous application number?,408,180
filled in OC~('. 1 I, ?003.
