US Patent 7907123 Selectively illuminated keyboard systems and methods

One exemplary method embodiment herein can run an operating system on a processor and executes one or more applications on the operating system (sometimes simultaneously) that causes different input requests to be dynamically displayed on a visual display. If more than one application is being executed at a time, only one currently selected application can be available for user input at a time. These input requests can dynamically change depending upon the current state of the currently selected application. The method controls the keys with the operating system to dynamically illuminate only valid keys that correspond to input requests of the currently selected application being currently displayed on the visual display.