As I have stated on another post discussing this same issue, sadly, I'm one of those who were affected by this bug/?hardware issue. Got a new blue iPhone 15PM a couple of days ago which was shortly updated to iOS 17.1.1.
In my case, the affected area appears to be the bottom right part of the screen overlaying the N, M, and backspace buttons on the keyboard. Upon attempting to type, tapping these buttons does not seem to register properly, leading to frequent typos. This happens fairly frequently with the screen being responsive in between the instances this occurs.
I do not have a screen protector installed. Thinking this could be due to a bug in the keyboard software, I have tried switching between different keyboards including the native iOS keyboard, SwitchKey and Gboard with the issue being present regardless of which keyboard is being used. Restarting the phone does nothing.
Hoping this gets acknowledged and addressed soon. I'm considering returning the device and getting a replacement as a hardware issue hasn't been conclusively ruled out.