Patent ID: 9673870
Date: 2017-06-06
CPC Classifications: H04B,H04L,H04W

Claim:
1. An apparatus comprising: a wireless communication circuit configured and arranged to send and receive over-the-air communications using a first message-exchange protocol; a near-field communication (NFC) circuit configured and arranged to wirelessly communicate with a plurality of different types of local NFC readers using a second NFC protocol that is different than the first message-exchange protocol; a first circuit configured and arranged to communicate with remote transceivers via the wireless communication circuit; a plurality of second circuits, each second circuit configured and arranged to communicate with a specific one of the different types of local NFC readers via the NFC circuit, using secure data stored within the second circuit, different ones of the second circuits being configured and arranged to communicate with different ones of the types of NFC readers; and a routing circuit configured and arranged to, in response to an NFC communication received from a specific one of the NFC readers, identify one of the plurality of second circuits that is configured and arranged to communicate with the specific one of the NFC readers, and route NFC communications between the specific one of the NFC readers and the identified one of the plurality of second circuits, wherein the routing circuit is configured and arranged to identify the one of the plurality of second circuits by accessing stored data in a routing table, wherein each of the second circuits stores at least one application data set that, when executed by the second circuit, causes the second circuit to communicate with the specific one of the local NFC readers, and the data stored in the routing table includes a list of respective applications stored in the respective second circuits, and location information identifying the storage location of the respective applications.