This invention relates to the electronic distribution of business card information.

There is provided a method and apparatus for distributing smart card information comprising the steps of: acquiring electronic information from a first smart card; acquiring an electronic address from a second smart card; and sending the information from the first smart card to the electronic address of the second card.

This allows electronic information from one smart card to be sent to an e-mail location contained on another smart card without the e-mail location of the second smart card being manually entered by the card carrier.

This invention relates to the electronic distribution of data across the Internet, and more specifically to the electronic distribution of business card information.

The success of an organization can partially hinge upon the creation of a wide network of business contacts.

Knowing where to find information and who to call upon for that information is vital.

At present, this process is for the most part facilitated via a paper-based system.

Business cards, containing contact information such as the name, job title, address and telephone number, provide the most commonplace means of exchanging useful follow-up details.

This method, however, is not ideal since it has a number of problems associated with.

The high rate at which business cards are exchanged can result in a person accumulating an excessive number of cards and to organize the cards into a useful format can become extremely labor intensive.

Furthermore an individual is required to carry a sufficient number of business cards for exchanging and needs to estimate the number of cards necessary.

He must also remember to carry them and store them somewhere on his person.

Moreover a restriction is placed on the amount of information that can be included on business card.

Another disadvantage is that a change in business details can result in cards being wasted and new ones having to be printed.

Yet another occurs upon exhaustion of the current supply, a new set has to be printed which will incur cost, take time and be inconvenient.

There have been a number of attempts to overcome the problems above.

Most of these have involved the conversion of paper-based business card details into a more useful electronic format.

Some examples are given below.

Using Card Image Scanners ordinary business cards are collected and scanned as images and then subject to text recognition before being inserted into a database.

The process is manually intensive, error-prone and information is limited to what can sensibly be included on a physical business card.

A variation is where the scanner is carried into the field, attached to a PC or PDA.

This can be even more manually intensive.

E-mail business cards are already in use, for example the "vCard" is one well-know format described in a white paper `vCard: The Electronic Business Card`.

These data files are automatically attached to your outgoing e-mails but one needs to know the e-mail address of the recipient (usually from a paper business card!) before you can send him/her your vCard.

Again this is manually intensive and also requires business cards (or at least e-mail addresses) to be carried.

Multi-application smart cards are now coming into general use.

These usually contain identification material, including cryptographic keys.

Such cards can be used to carry a business card applet.

However all known existing applications require a GUI and/or manual activity to power up a PC and/or interaction with an application.

None of them currently uses e-mail, or automatic generation of nail, or a low-cost embedded Java device.