Patents Examined by Joseph J. Acosta
  • Patent number: 5828364
    Abstract: A case top for the housing of a mouse-type pointing device in a computer system, including two user actuable buttons on the case top, is made of a single piece of plastic. The case top includes securing arms which engage securing hooks extending from a case bottom of the housing, allowing the case top to be releasably fastened to the case bottom with a single screw. The buttons are attached to a main body of the case top by two spring arms concurrently formed with the case top. The two buttons actuate an integrated switch package having two momentary switches within the package. The integrated switch package consists of two pieces: a switch case, and a switch spring positioned therein. The switch package is mounted on a printed circuit board positioned within the interior of the housing of the pointing device. The switch case engages the case bottom of the housing to help secure both the switch package and the printed circuit board therein.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 3, 1995
    Date of Patent: October 27, 1998
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventor: Kabir Siddiqui
  • Patent number: 5736976
    Abstract: The present invention is described as a computer data entry apparatus having a keyboard comprised of a keypad assembly and equipped with one or multiple motion sensing devices, and having a motion monitoring visual aid display. The motion sensing device is included to the apparatus to detect and sense the motion of operator finger locations before or after keys are actuated for data entry. A map with a keypad layout and sensed finger locations is interactively generated and displayed on a window of the computer display screen to provide the data entry visual aid. The combined function of motion sensing and visual aid displaying advantageously constitutes an easy operation computer data entry apparatus or system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 13, 1995
    Date of Patent: April 7, 1998
    Inventor: Nina T. Cheung
  • Patent number: 5670982
    Abstract: A method for rotating bi-level image data plus or minus 90.degree.. An 8.times.8 pixel block is selected for rotation from the image data and, using lookup tables, an intermediate matrix is generated dynamically and stored into two 32-bit registers in the processor. Generation of the intermediate matrix partially rotates and stores the odd-numbered rows from the block of data in the first 32-bit register and the even-numbered rows from the block in the second 32-bit register. The first and second registers are copied, respectively, into third and fourth 32-bit registers. The first and second registers are then shifted one bit in opposite directions. The first register is logical ORed with the fourth register, and the second register is logical ORed with the third register so that the even bits are replaced in one register and the odd bits in the other. These steps are repeated for all remaining blocks of image data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 8, 1995
    Date of Patent: September 23, 1997
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventor: Albert Z. Zhao