{
  "patent_number": "US 8587547",
  "country": "US",
  "title": "How to Split a Smartphone Keyboard with a Gesture",
  "original_title": "Device, method, and graphical user interface for manipulating soft keyboards",
  "summary": "Apple's 2013 patent describes how to split a phone's keyboard in half and move it up the screen with a swipe, making it easier to type with thumbs.",
  "what_it_does": "This patent covers a method and device for changing a full keyboard on a smartphone screen into a split keyboard. When you're using your phone, it shows a regular, unsplit keyboard at the bottom of the screen, along with your app's content. If you make a specific gesture, like a swipe, on the screen, the device turns that keyboard into a split one, with keys for your left thumb on the left and keys for your right thumb on the right. This split keyboard then moves up over the app content. The patent also covers the reverse: swiping the split keyboard back down to make it a full, unsplit keyboard again at the bottom.",
  "what_it_does_not_cover": [
    "Keyboards that are split by default without a gesture.",
    "Splitting a keyboard without moving it over the application content area.",
    "Methods that do not involve converting an unsplit keyboard to a split keyboard.",
    "Methods that do not involve converting a split keyboard to an unsplit keyboard.",
    "Gestures that do not result in the keyboard moving away from the bottom of the display."
  ],
  "filed": "2011-09-23",
  "granted": "2013-11-19",
  "expires": "2031-09-23",
  "status": "active",
  "holder": "Apple Inc",
  "holder_url": "https://patentbrief.org/company/apple-inc",
  "inventors": [
    {
      "name": "Jonathan Koch",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/jonathan-koch"
    },
    {
      "name": "Scott Forstall",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/scott-forstall"
    },
    {
      "name": "Elizabeth Caroline Furches Cranfill",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/elizabeth-caroline-furches-cranfill"
    }
  ],
  "times_cited": 6,
  "tags": [
    "consumer_electronics",
    "software",
    "telecommunications"
  ],
  "abstract": "An electronic device with a display and a touch-sensitive surface concurrently displays on the display an application content area and an unsplit keyboard, the unsplit keyboard being located at a bottom of the display. The device detects a first gesture on the touch-sensitive surface. In response to detecting the first gesture on the touch-sensitive surface, the device converts the unsplit keyboard into a split keyboard and moves the split keyboard away from the bottom of the display over the application content area in accordance with the first gesture.",
  "url": "https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/8587547/device-method-and-graphical-user-interface-for-manipulating-soft-keyboards",
  "markdown_url": "https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/8587547/device-method-and-graphical-user-interface-for-manipulating-soft-keyboards/md",
  "google_patents_url": "https://patents.google.com/patent/US8587547",
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      "countryCode": "US",
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    {
      "patentNumber": "8291344",
      "countryCode": "US",
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}