Apple Investigating Pen Based Input System

According to a recent patent filing, Apple is investigating input recognition via pen.

The patent entitled, "Method and Apparatus for Acquiring and Organizing Ink Information in Pen-Aware Computer Systems" relates to an ink manager for acquiring and organizing pen-based ink information for use by pen-aware and other applications.

Apple observes that client applications and handwriting recognition software in pen-based computer systems can make far more accurate ink-related decisions based on entire ink phrases, rather than individual ink strokes.


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Accordingly, the invention is directed to an ink manager that is designed to organize ink strokes into ink phrases and to provide these ink phrases to client applications. In the illustrative embodiment, the ink manager interfaces between a pen-based input device, one or more applications (pen-aware or not) and one or more handwriting recognition engines executing on the computer system.

The ink manager acquires ink information, such as ink strokes, entered at the pen-based input device, and organizes that information into ink phrases. The ink manager includes an ink phrase termination engine (which may be partially executed in a pen driver component) that is configured to apply one or more ink phrase termination tests to the ink information.

If the termination engine detects the occurrence of an ink phrase termination event, the ink manager performs the following steps in order:
1) finishes organizing the strokes into an ink phrase data structure,
2) optionally notifies the current client application program of the termination event by providing it with the ink phrase, thereby allowing the application to determine a suitable affiliation between the ink phrase and a specific input field, specify a reference context (e.g., a pointer) and request a particular recognition context, if desired,
3) notifies the appropriate handwriting recognition engine, so as to allow it to complete its work and provide the recognition results corresponding to the current ink phrase, and
4) sends the now labeled (i.e., recognized) ink phrase to the application, together with any reference context previously identified by the application (in step 2). To the extent the application returns a reference context and/or a recognition context, they may be appended to the ink phrase data structure.

Included with the filing is an image of a tablet computer that looks similar to the rumored Apple tablet device.


Read More [via AppleInsider]