The patent was published 10 years ago. It says it is withdrawn but I don’t know if we can somehow see the reason or if it was voluntarily withdrawn.
They didn’t pay the annual renewal fee:
01.08.2018 – Application deemed to be withdrawn, date of legal effect [2019/02]
28.08.2018 – Despatch of communication that the application is deemed to be withdrawn, reason: renewal fee not paid in time [2019/02]
And the most important aspect of what makes us fast typing is not the order of the letters, but the fact that we have muscle memory to reach them once we are used to a layout.
Some of the proposed applications of the patent are vending machines and car navigation systems . For vending machines, the aspect of muscle memory is probably not very dominant and thus, an optimised layout might be beneficial. Yet, as the layout is ‘different’ than usual, people usung the vending machines might also be confused and thus, the time benefit from the novel optimal layout is probably also non existent in that use case.
For the car navigation system it’s probably beneficial. After some time you probably have internalised the location of the letters and thus can type faster. For navigation systems it’s probably not a frequent use case that the keyboard language and thus its layout is changed regularly.
For a smartphone keyboard, I agree, it’s odd if you have to search for the location of the same letter on different layouts at different places.
They didn’t pay the annual renewal fee:
epo.org
Some of the proposed applications of the patent are vending machines and car navigation systems . For vending machines, the aspect of muscle memory is probably not very dominant and thus, an optimised layout might be beneficial. Yet, as the layout is ‘different’ than usual, people usung the vending machines might also be confused and thus, the time benefit from the novel optimal layout is probably also non existent in that use case.
For the car navigation system it’s probably beneficial. After some time you probably have internalised the location of the letters and thus can type faster. For navigation systems it’s probably not a frequent use case that the keyboard language and thus its layout is changed regularly.
For a smartphone keyboard, I agree, it’s odd if you have to search for the location of the same letter on different layouts at different places.