Filing Information

Inventor(s)	Ewald C. Anderl · Oren Frankel · Avi Zahavi ·
Assignee(s)	American Telephone and Telegraph Company · AT&T Information Systems Inc. ·  View assignee updates
Attorney/Agent(s)	Samuel R. Williamson ·
Primary Examiner	Alan Faber ·
Assistant Examiner	Robert A. Weinhardt ·
Application Number	US6863973
Filing date	05/16/1986
Issue date	03/28/1989
Predicted expiration date	05/16/2006
U.S. Classifications	235/380  · 235/379  ·
International Classifications	G06F 1530  ·
Kind Code	A
International Classifications	340825.31;825.33;825.34 ·

Patent Family

Abstract

A portable data carrier system provides improved security for files which support multiple applications, from custom repertory dialing to storage of individual medical and/or banking records. Included in the system is a portable data carrier which looks and feels much like an ordinary credit card. The portable data carrier, however, includes a computer and an electrically erasable field programmable read-only memory. Power for operation of the portable data carrier is provided from an associated station via a reader/writer. The reader/writer also couples data between the data carrier and the associated station. Operation of the data carrier is through an executive operating system that is accessed from the station via a set of commonly understood command primitives. These command primitives manipulate the files in the data carrier in accordance with security requirements. Security is enhanced since the stations's application software receiving and interpreting the data from a file sees a contiguous stream of bytes relating only to the file of the application being accessed. No information is provided to a user of a particular application about other applications in the data carrier or about the data carrier's internal file structure.

Independent Claims | See all claims (9)

1. 1. A portable data carrier system comprising:a portable data carrier for storing and processing alterable data, the portable data carrier including both a computer for providing an executive operating system on the portable data carrier and an alterable memory for providing data to the computer for operating the executive operating system, the executive operating system providing a data input/output interface means for the portable data carrier, and creating multiple files in a data segment region of the alterable memory for storing the alterable data associated with each file, the size of each file and placement of the data for each file in the data segment region being controlled by the executive operating system and the data for each file being allocatable at any of multiple available locations throughout the data segment region by the executive operating system;an application station for processing data from the portable data carrier; andcommunication means for providing communications between the application station and the portable data carrier, the application station communicating with the portable data carrier over the communication means through command primitives, responsive to the command primitives, the executive operating system accessing the alterable data for reading therefrom and writing thereto, and providing this data to the application station via the communication means.