Elo Touchsystems, Inc.

Drew John Loucks

Joel Christopher Kent

John Seymour Mattis

Miguel A Morales

James A Rinde

James Roney

Geoffrey D Wilson

Jeff Dolin

Barry C Mathews

Mark W Ellsworth

Frank Wasilewski

Mike Lewis

Victor E Borgnis

Michael Bruno Patti

A method and apparatus for discriminating against false touches in a touchscreen system is provided. The system is designed to confirm a touch registered by one touch sensor with another touch sensor, preferably of a different sensor type, prior to acting upon the touch (i.e., sending touch coordinates to the operating system). If the touch registered by the first touch sensor is not confirmed by the second touch sensor, the touch is invalidated. Thus the strengths of one type of sensor are used to overcome the deficiencies of another type of sensor. In one aspect, the secondary touch sensor comprises a force sensor to discriminate between true and false touches on other types of touch sensors, such as contaminants on optical and surface acoustic wave sensors, noise or weak signals on capacitive sensors, etc. The force sensor may be a simple one-element system that merely indicates that a touch has occurred or a multi-element system that can provide confirming or supplementary coordinate data. In another aspect, a capacitive sensor is used to confirm or veto touch data from optical, surface acoustic wave, and force sensors. As is the case with the secondary force sensor, a secondary capacitive sensor may be a simple discrete type or capable of providing touch coordinates in its own right. In a specific embodiment, one in which no touch overlay is used on a CRT monitor, the secondary touch sensor may employ the resistive coating on the surface of the CRT in combination with a current monitoring circuit that measures the amplitude of the electromagnetic noise signal coupled to the resistive coating. In this application when the screen is touched by a grounded object, the detected signal amplitude change exceeds a preset threshold thus indicating a valid touch.

Touch confirming touchscreen utilizing plural touch sensors

A sealing system for an acoustic touchscreen includes an elongate gel body between the touchscreen and the bezel of a housing onto which the touchscreen is mounted. The elongate gel body forms a seal around the perimeter of the touch-sensitive area of the touchscreen. A stop element controls and limits the amount of compression of the elongate gel body. The resulting seal is highly effective in protecting the unexposed parts of the touchscreen (i.e., areas other than the touch-sensitive area) from contaminants, especially liquid contaminants, at the cost of an acceptably low loss in acoustic signal strength.

Sealing system for acoustic wave touchscreens

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Los Altos, CA, United States of America

Drew John Loucks