Patent ID: 6880084

Claim:
A method of managing a smart card product, comprising the steps of: providing a plurality of generic definitions in a database at least a portion of which have a predefined relationship to others of the generic definitions so as to provide a hierarchy of generic definitions; selecting generic definitions from the plurality of generic definitions to associate the selected generic definitions with an instance of a card product definition, the instance of the card product definition defining characteristics of the smart card product; and populating the selected generic definitions with data associated with the smart card product so a, to provide a hierarchy of instances of the generic definitions which define the characteristics of the smart card product; wherein one or more data processing systems is configured to utilize the hierarchy of instances of the generic definitions to manage the smart card product; wherein the steps of providing a plurality of generic definition objects, selecting generic definition objects and linking the selected generic definitions comprise the steps of: establishing the instance of the card product definition; associating at least one chip definition with the instance of the card product definition; associating at least one process definition with the instance of the card product definition; associating at least one task definition with the at least one process definition; associating at least one enterprise definition with the instance of the card product definition; and associating at least one application definition with the instance of the card product definition.