Tai Wen

US Patent:

20020140679, Oct 3, 2002

Filed:

Mar 29, 2002

Appl. No.:

10/109941

Inventors:

Tai Chun Wen - Santa Clara CA, US

International Classification:

G09G005/00

US Classification:

345/168000, 345/169000

Abstract:

A keypad and key device featuring a plurality of contacts on the rear face of a keypad key that each mate with an individual contact pad from a plurality of contact pads placed below the upwardly biased and tiltable keys. Pushing a key on a right side or left side mates different pairs of contacts and contact pads generating different characters for input to a cellular phone or small computer. Pushing the key in the center will generate a third character by mating both contacts with both contact pads. The keys may also have more than two contacts mating with more than two contact pads and tilt to a variety of positions to mate the respective contacts with contact pads. Consequently, one depression of a key enables any one of a plurality of characters assigned thereto to be inputted which is effective in accelerating a data inputting process.