Sharing Access for Clients

• US 20110320600A1
• Filed: 12/16/2008
• Published: 12/29/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/16/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nokia Technologies Oy (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Nokia Corporation
• Inventors: Vestergaard, Peter, Froeding, Emil Nicolaj, Ilsoee, Joergen Moeller
• Granted Patent: US 8,706,875 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/225
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4856 resumption being on a different machine, e.g. task migration, virtual machine migration G06F9/5088 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4881 Scheduling strategies for dispatcher, e.g. round robin, multi-level priority queues
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/341 Active cards, i.e. cards including their own processing means, e.g. including an IC or chip
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3574 Multiple applications on card
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 7/1008 Active credit-cards provided with means to personalise their use, e.g. with PIN-introduction/comparison system

Abstract

This patent application relates to a method, a computer program product, a computer program, an apparatus, and a system for sharing an access to at least one application located on a smart card unit.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

sharing access to at least one application located on a smart card unit for at least two clients in parallel,

wherein sharing access is granted according to access rules,

wherein one client of the at least two clients has a higher priority than the remaining clients of the at least two clients, and

wherein access to the at least one application can be performed by at least one of;

referencing the application explicitly; and

referencing the application implicitly.

2. The method of claim 1, comprising exposing a common interface for the at least two clients in order to handle at least one access request.

3. The method of claim 1, comprising receiving an access request for the at least one application from one client of the at least two clients, checking whether this one application is already active, and activating the one application on the smart card unit when the application is not active.

4. The method of claim 1, in case the application is already active, providing shared access to the application for the one client.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein activating the at least one application is only performed when the number of active applications does not exceed a maximum number of applications.

6. The method of claim 3, comprising receiving a deactivate request for the at least one application from one client of the at least two clients, checking whether access to this one application is shared with another client of the at least two clients, and deactivating this one application only when there is no another client sharing this application.

7-15. -15. (canceled)

16. An apparatus, comprising:

a server entity configured to share access to at least one application located on a smart card unit for at least two clients in parallel

wherein sharing access is granted according to access rules

wherein one client of the at least two clients has a higher priority than the remaining clients of the at least two clients, and

wherein access to the at least one application can be performed by at least one of;

reference the application explicitly; and

reference the application implicitly.

17. The apparatus of claim 16, comprising a common interface configured to handle at least one access request from the at least two clients.

18. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the server entity is configured to receive an access request for at least one application from one client of the at least two clients, to check whether this one application is already active, and to activate the one application on the smart card unit when the application is not active.

19. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the server entity is configured to provide shared access to the at least one application for the one client to in case the application is already active.

20. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein activating the one application is only performed when the number of active applications does not exceed a maximum number of applications.

21. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the server entity is configured to receive a deactivate request for the at least one application from one client of the at least two clients, to check whether the access to this one application is shared with another client of the at least two clients, and to deactivate this one application only when there is no other client sharing this application.

22. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the at least one application represents at least two applications, and wherein an application being currently accessed represents a first application, wherein the server entity is configured to interleave access of the first application in case of receiving an access request for a second application of said at least two applications having a higher priority.

26. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the interleaving comprises:

stop access of the first application;

access the second application;

restart access of the first application when the second application is finished.

27. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein a first client of the at least two clients represents a modem client of a modem engine and a second client of the at least two clients represents a host client of an application engine.

28. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the server entity is configured to track currently selected file information of an accessed application.

29. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein one application of the at least one application represents a telecom application.

30. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the smart card unit represents a universal integrated circuit card.

31. A system, comprising:

an apparatus according to claim 16;

a smart card unit; and

at least two clients configured to communicate with the apparatus for accessing an application on the smart card unit.

23-25. -25. (canceled)

32. (canceled)

33. A computer program, comprising a computer-readable medium bearing computer program code embodied therein for use with a computer, the computer program code comprising:

code for sharing access to at least one application located on a smart card unit for at least two clients in parallel,

wherein sharing access is granted according to access rules,

wherein one client of the at least two clients has a higher priority than the remaining clients of the at least two clients, and

wherein access to the at least one application can be performed by at least one of;

referencing the application explicitly; and

referencing the application implicitly.

34-36. -36. (canceled)