US6084576A — User friendly keyboard

Claim 1

Independent Claim 224 words

An ergonomic keyboard comprising: a left quadrant having an angle ranging from 25° to 35° from a user's body centerline; a right quadrant having an angle ranging from 25° to 35° from a user's body centerline; and said left and right quadrants each having a curved home row of keys located to conform to a user's index, middle, ring, and pinkie fingers when bent in a slightly flexed position; and each quadrant having a curved adjacent upper row of keys above the home row and a curved adjacent middle row of keys below the home row and a curved adjacent lower row of keys below the middle row and a curved adjacent bottom row of keys below the lower row, said keys forming four columns, each comprising a domain and each having an alignment with a centerline of a user's index, middle, ring, and pinkie fingers; and each quadrant having a fifth column of four keys inboard from a user's index finger and a column of at least two keys outboard from a user's pinkie finger defining a pinkie-domain area; and each quadrant having a plurality of keys located in a thumb-domain area defined by a reach of a user's thumb; and each quadrant having a palm support to enable a user to touch every key without lifting his palm from the palm support.

Claim 2

Dependent Claim 224 words

An ergonomic keyboard comprising: a left quadrant having an angle ranging from 25° to 35° from a user's body centerline; a right quadrant having an angle ranging from 25° to 35° from a user's body centerline; and said left and right quadrants each having a curved home row of keys located to conform to a user's index, middle, ring, and pinkie fingers when bent in a slightly flexed position; and each quadrant having a curved adjacent upper row of keys above the home row and a curved adjacent middle row of keys below the home row and a curved adjacent lower row of keys below the middle row and a curved adjacent bottom row of keys below the lower row, said keys forming four columns, each comprising a domain and each having an alignment with a centerline of a user's index, middle, ring, and pinkie fingers; and each quadrant having a fifth column of four keys inboard from a user's index finger and a column of at least two keys outboard from a user's pinkie finger defining a pinkie-domain area; and each quadrant having a plurality of keys located in a thumb-domain area defined by a reach of a user's thumb; and each quadrant having a palm support to enable a user to touch every key without lifting his palm from the palm support.

Claim 3

Dependent Claim 19 words

The keyboard of claim 1, wherein the thumb-domain area further comprises a cursor controller for controlling a cursorial indicator.

Claim 4

Dependent Claim 19 words

The keyboard of claim 1, wherein said pinkie-domain area of each quadrant further comprises numeric designations and diacritic symbols.

Claim 5

Dependent Claim 51 words

The keyboard of claim 1, wherein the character assignment of the home, upper, middle, and bottom row of keys on the left quadrant are designated A through L and Y, and the home, upper, middle, and bottom row of keys on the right quadrant are designated M through X and Z.

Claim 6

Dependent Claim 14 words

The keyboard of claim 1, wherein the palm support further comprises a joypad controller.

Claim 7

Dependent Claim 20 words

The keyboard of claim 1, wherein each quadrant further comprises a power-reach row of keys located above the upper row.

Claim 8

Dependent Claim 43 words

The keyboard of claim 1, wherein each quadrant further comprises a palm key row comprising three keys below the bottom row of keys, wherein the palm keys can be actuated individually or synchronously by combination of any two or all three palm keys.

Claim 9

Dependent Claim 43 words

The keyboard of claim 6, wherein each quadrant further comprises a key designation flip/flop key to change each key to a key on the opposite quadrant keyboard, and an upper-case key adjustment to the flip/flop key thereby enabling one-handed typing on either keyboard.

Claim 10

Dependent Claim 36 words

The keyboard of claim 6, wherein the palm support further comprises a forward and backward moving mechanism to enable a user to reach the power-reach row of keys without moving his palm off the palm support.

Claim 11

Dependent Claim 47 words

The keyboard of claim 2, wherein the thumb-domain area further comprises circular array keys concentric with the cursor controller to enable a user to touch these keys without lifting this thumb, said circular array of keys further comprises an inward home row and an outward home row.

Claim 12

Dependent Claim 37 words

The keyboard of claim 3, wherein the pinkie-domain area further comprises a function key to enable a user to hold the function key down with his pinkie finger while touching a number key with his ring finger.

Claim 13

Dependent Claim 16 words

The keyboard of claim 1, wherein the thumb-domain area further comprises a thumb curved key cluster.

Claim 14

Dependent Claim 29 words

The keyboard of claim 1, wherein the palm support is fixedly adjustable forward and backward to enable ease of use by a plurality of users having different hand sizes.

Claim 15

Dependent Claim 22 words

The keyboard of claim 5, wherein the joypad controller further comprises a circular motion sensor and an X-axis and a Y-axis controller.

Claim 16

Dependent Claim 71 words

The keyboard of claim 10, wherein the character assignment of the said circular array keys are: shift-hand key adjacent to said cursor controller on the inward home row of the thumb domain; space key adjacent to said cursor controller on the outward home row of the thumb domain; shift-case key placed adjacent to the shift-hand key, whereby the shift-hand key and shift-case key can be actuated simultaneously by a user's thumb.

Claim 17

Dependent Claim 51 words

The keyboard of claim 10, wherein the character assignment of the said circular array keys from the shift-hand key immediately adjacent to the left of the cursor controller in clockwise order further comprises a comma (,) key, period (.) key, back-space key, space key, return key, enter key, and shift-case key.

Claim 18

Dependent Claim 26 words

The keyboard of claim 10, further comprising a row of keys comprising a top, home, and lower row adjacent to said outward home row of keys.

Claim 19

Dependent Claim 105 words

The keyboard of claim 17, wherein the character assignment of the said outward home row of keys further comprises: a page-up key on the top row; a home key on the home row; a page-down key on the lower row; which keys are single-finger synchronous keys whereby the page-up key and home key may be actuated simultaneously with the thumb so the user can move the cursorial indicator to the beginning of a program or document; and whereby a user may actuate the page-down key and home key with the thumb simultaneously to move the cursorial indicator to the end of a program or document.

Claim 20

Dependent Claim 36 words

The keyboard of claim 1, wherein the keys of the home row and the upper and lower rows further comprise a high-frequency block assigned to the most frequently used characters of a specific program or language.

Claim 21

Dependent Claim 71 words

The keyboard of claim 19, wherein: said high-frequency block further comprises alphabet characters; said small-finger domains further comprise numeric characters; said left-quadrant lower row and bottom row further comprises punctuation characters; said right-quadrant lower row and bottom row further comprises symbolic characters; said power-reach rows further comprise basic computer function keys; said thumb domains further comprise basic word process function keys; and said palm key domain further comprise toggle-switch function keys.

Claim 22

Dependent Claim 69 words

The keyboard of claim 12, wherein the thumb-curved key cluster further comprises: a cursor controller at a user's thumb tip; an upper row of thumb keys arranged above a curved line alone an arc described by a user's thumb through the center of said cursor controller; a middle row of thumb keys arranged below said upper row; and a lower row of thumb keys arranged below said middle row.

Claim 23

Dependent Claim 74 words

The keyboard of claim 21, wherein said thumb-curved key cluster further comprises: a shift-case key at a 10 o'clock position relative to a centerline from said palm domain through said cursor controller; a backspace key immediately clockwise from said shift-case key; a space key immediately clockwise from said backspace key; and a shift-hand key immediately clockwise from said space key, wherein all of said keys are in a circular arrangement about said cursor controller.

Claim 24

Dependent Claim 77 words

The keyboard of claim 21, wherein the key assignments of the thumb domain further comprise: the upper row of keys progressing from the inward to the outward are:, (comma), shift-case key, backspace key, page-up key; the middle row of keys progressing from the inward to the outward are:, (period), shift-hand key, space key, home key; and the lower row of keys progressing from the inward to the outward are: jump key, enter key, return key, page-down key.

Claim 25

Dependent Claim 59 words

The keyboard of claim 1, wherein: the pinkie-finger domain comprises the color red; the ring-finger domain comprises the color orange; the middle-finger domain comprises the color yellow; the index-finger domain comprises the color green; the thumb domain comprises the color blue; the joy pad controller comprises the color indigo; and the palm-key domain outline color comprises the color violet.

Claim 26

Dependent Claim 17 words

The keyboard of claim 4, wherein the characters further have an outline comprising a variable line thickness.

Claim 27

Dependent Claim 34 words

The keyboard of claim 24 further comprising: an inlay color for vowel characters which is red; an inlay color for consonants which is blue; and an inlay color for numeric characters which is green.

Claim 28

Dependent Claim 13 words

The keyboard of claim 18 wherein the synchronous keys comprise the same color.

Claim 29

Dependent Claim 26 words

The keyboard of claim 1, further comprising a detachable connection between the left quadrant and right quadrant whereby said quadrants may be separated by a user.

Claim 30

Dependent Claim 19 words

The keyboard of claim 1 wherein the height of each key is in the range of 0.7 to 1.2cm.

Claim 31

Dependent Claim 13 words

The keyboard of claim 1 wherein the cursor controller further comprises a mouseball.

Claim 32

Independent Claim 234 words

A method of illustrating use of the user-friendly keyboard to a typist on a monitor comprising the steps of: rendering a graphic depiction of a keyboard; dividing the rendering into sections comprising; left- and right-hand high-frequency blocks; a punctuation block; a symbolic block; left- and right-hand pinkie-finger blocks; a number function block; left- and right-hand thumb blocks; left- and right-hand palm-key blocks; placing each section onto a monitor frame for viewing by a user in an arrangement comprising; said left- and right-hand high-frequency blocks located at the top of a monitor frame on the left and right side respectively; said punctuation block located at the top of a monitor frame adjacent to said left-hand high-frequency block; said symbolic section located at the top of a monitor frame adjacent to said right-hand high-frequency block; said left- and right-hand pinkie-finger blocks located at the ton of a monitor frame at the left and right corners respectively; said number-function block located on the left side of a monitor frame; said left- and right-hand thumb blocks located on the bottom of a monitor frame at the left and right side respectively; said left- and right-hand palm-key blocks located on the bottom of the frame of a monitor adjacent to said thumb blocks; and whereby a user may refer to said blocks for keyboard layout for entry of data on a computer while a user is viewing a monitor.

Claim 33

Independent Claim 234 words

A method of illustrating use of the user-friendly keyboard to a typist on a monitor comprising the steps of: rendering a graphic depiction of a keyboard; dividing the rendering into sections comprising; left- and right-hand high-frequency blocks; a punctuation block; a symbolic block; left- and right-hand pinkie-finger blocks; a number function block; left- and right-hand thumb blocks; left- and right-hand palm-key blocks; placing each section onto a monitor frame for viewing by a user in an arrangement comprising; said left- and right-hand high-frequency blocks located at the top of a monitor frame on the left and right side respectively; said punctuation block located at the top of a monitor frame adjacent to said left-hand high-frequency block; said symbolic section located at the top of a monitor frame adjacent to said right-hand high-frequency block; said left- and right-hand pinkie-finger blocks located at the ton of a monitor frame at the left and right corners respectively; said number-function block located on the left side of a monitor frame; said left- and right-hand thumb blocks located on the bottom of a monitor frame at the left and right side respectively; said left- and right-hand palm-key blocks located on the bottom of the frame of a monitor adjacent to said thumb blocks; and whereby a user may refer to said blocks for keyboard layout for entry of data on a computer while a user is viewing a monitor.

Annuity Stage	Window Opens	Payment Deadline	Surcharge Period Until	Estimated Fee	Status
3.5 Years (Year 4)	2003-07-04	2004-01-03	2004-07-04	$2000.00	Window Closed / Lapsed
7.5 Years (Year 8)	2007-07-04	2008-01-03	2008-07-04	$3760.00	Window Closed / Lapsed
11.5 Years (Year 12)	2011-07-04	2012-01-03	2012-07-04	$7700.00	Window Closed / Lapsed

User friendly keyboard

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