  The standard QWERTY keyboard was developed in the late 1800s for the
typewriters. As people were acquainted with that the same layout was retained
for the computer keyboards. Many people feel that the QWERTY layout is not very
efficient layout and there have been many inventions on different layouts of
character keys.
  In order to improve the key arrangement, two major issues should be
addressed. (i) The improved key arrangement should offer significantly improved
productivity. (ii) The training time for learning the improved key arrangement
should be minimized.
  This article analyzes 10 inventions from US patent database each of which
have proposed a new layout giving us some specific advantage. The inventions
try to achieve one or more of the following advantages, viz., to reduce finger
movements during typing, to achieve speed in data entry, to reduce errors in
typing, making keyboard easy to learn, making easy for children to find keys,
reduce stress in hands and finger and suitability for special purpose
computers.
