Telephone keypad input technique

Claim 1

A method for entering one of a plurality of phonetic language symbols into a telephone apparatus having a keypad with at least one key for producing a first key signal and a second key signal, comprising: providing a language symbol matrix having rows and columns and entries corresponding to an intersection of the rows and columns, each entry corresponding to one of the plurality of phonetic language symbols; selecting the first key signal a selected number of times to progress along the rows of the matrix; selecting the second key signal a selected number of times to progress along the columns of the matrix to designate an entry; and providing an input signal to the telephone to indicate the selection of the designated entry.

Claim 2

A method for entering one of a plurality of phonetic language symbols into a telephone apparatus having a keypad with at least one key for producing a first key signal and a second key signal, comprising: providing a language symbol matrix having rows and columns and entries corresponding to an intersection of the rows and columns, each entry corresponding to one of the plurality of phonetic language symbols; selecting the first key signal a selected number of times to progress along the rows of the matrix; selecting the second key signal a selected number of times to progress along the columns of the matrix to designate an entry; and providing an input signal to the telephone to indicate the selection of the designated entry.

Claim 5

A method for entering Japanese language kata-kana symbols into a cellular telephone apparatus having a memory and a keypad with a plurality of keys, comprising: providing data in the memory in a form representing a kata-kana symbol matrix having a plurality of representative sound sequences; designating keys of the telephone keypad with a symbol representing at least one of said representative sound sequences; selecting a designated key in succession a selected number of times to designate a desired representative sound in the matrix; providing a first input signal to the cellular telephone to indicate the selection of the designated representative sound in the matrix; repeating the previous two steps using different designated keys in order to build a word from the selected representative sounds; and providing a second input signal to the cellular telephone to indicate the selection of the word.

Claim 6

A method for entering Japanese language kata-kana symbols into a cellular telephone apparatus having a memory and a keypad with a plurality of keys, comprising: providing data in the memory in a form representing a kata-kana symbol matrix having a plurality of representative sound sequences; designating keys of the telephone keypad with a symbol representing at least one of said representative sound sequences; selecting a designated key in succession a selected number of times to designate a desired representative sound in the matrix; providing a first input signal to the cellular telephone to indicate the selection of the designated representative sound in the matrix; repeating the previous two steps using different designated keys in order to build a word from the selected representative sounds; and providing a second input signal to the cellular telephone to indicate the selection of the word.

Claim 12

A method for entering Japanese language kata-kana symbols into a cellular telephone apparatus having a memory and a keypad with a plurality of keys, comprising: providing data in the memory in a form representing a kata-kana symbol matrix having a plurality of representative sound sequences; designating keys of the telephone keypad with a symbol representing at least one of said representative sound sequences; selecting a designated key in succession a selected number of times to designate a desired representative sound in the matrix; and providing an input signal to the cellular telephone to indicate the selection of the designated representative sound in the matrix.

Claim 13

A method for entering Japanese language kata-kana symbols into a cellular telephone apparatus having a memory and a keypad with a plurality of keys, comprising: providing data in the memory in a form representing a kata-kana symbol matrix having a plurality of representative sound sequences; designating keys of the telephone keypad with a symbol representing at least one of said representative sound sequences; selecting a designated key in succession a selected number of times to designate a desired representative sound in the matrix; and providing an input signal to the cellular telephone to indicate the selection of the designated representative sound in the matrix.