What's really interesting about this patent is that it proposes a device that understands context, inherently deducing whether you're trying to use the touchpad or actually type. I'll explain more after the jump.

Like all good ideas (and Apple concepts, especially) the patent can be boiled down to a few simple concepts. Touchpads are often maligned because they can be unintentionally used, turned on by a careless gesture, which can cause the cursor to jump around unexpectedly. The patent also assumes that users typically rest their wrists or arms on the so-called palm rest at the bottom of the laptop, space that really is used for nothing at all.

What Apple's patent proposes is a combination of sensors and intelligence to monitor a user's hands. When typing, a touchpad (or touchpad bar that runs the width of the keyboard) "sees" nothing but the wrists or arms of the user. When a touchpad is being used, the touchpad "sees" the circular impression of a finger.

Apple proposes a patent that can recognize what a wrist looks like, versus a finger or two. How? By using any one of a number of different sensors: infrared, optical, or capacitative sensors, either mounted in the touchpad itself or even placed high in the LCD display, eying your fingers as they move about the keyboard.

The patent proposes that an array of these sensors be used, so that a user could type a key or two with one hand, while sliding a finger about the touchpad below.

While the solution is elegant, the fundamental problem of a touchpad still remains: how to deal with errant gestures. A trailing finger or thumb can still wreak havoc; a standard or smart touchpad is still going to detect them. The key, apparently, will lie within Apple's traditional fiefdom: simple, effective software that solves everyday problems.

It should be noted that a suit is currently pending against Apple over its multi-touch touchscreen patent; the latest, from SP Technologies, claims that its own patent supersedes Apple's. The patent in question concerns a so-called "soft" keyboard, where users touch a keypad created as an image on a display.