Patent ID: RE43954

Claim:
A credit card and cellular telephone assembly for use with a cellular telephone of the kind having a keypad, an outer housing, and a computer system, said computer system including a central processing unit, a data bus, an electronic memory storage and software, the assembly handheld apparatus comprising: the a cellular telephone , said cellular telephone also including a magnetic reader/writer capable of reading data from a magnetic strip of a standard-width credit card , the wherein an outer housing having of the cellular telephone includes a slit running along a side of said the outer housing, the slit having a width at least equal to a standard width of a credit card, the slit also having a sufficient depth so that the credit card can be inserted into the slit in a manner that places the a magnetic strip of said a credit card beyond a vertical border of an inside wall at the side of the outer housing, the magnetic reader/writer positioned adjacent a slit wall of the slit, a template credit card having a magnetic strip, the magnetic strip of said template credit card capable of storing and deleting data from at least one credit card selected from a plurality of credit cards when the template credit card is swiped through the slit, a keypad, coupled to the outer housing, a computer system including a central processing unit, a data bus, and electronic memory storage, a controller of the magnetic reader/writer connected to the magnetic reader/writer, said the controller for processing and storing electrical signals from the magnetic reader/writer and for instructing the magnetic reader/writer, said the controller connected to the computer system of the cellular telephone including through a the data bus to the central processing unit of the cellular telephone , and first software , stored in the electronic memory storage, for operating the controller to process a keypad selection of a credit card whose data is to be written by the magnetic reader/writer on to the template credit card from among a plurality of credit cards whose data has been read by the magnetic/reader/writer and stored in the electronic memory storage, and to write data associated with the selected card by the magnetic reader/writer onto a template credit card .