DESC:FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to business card management system, more particularly to a system and method for effective creation, processing and transmission of digital business cards including the scanned copies of physical cards.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

A business card is an important document that projects the official identity of a professional or a business person while meeting other people. It has important information such asthe person’s name, the organization he or she represents, and his or her position in that organization etc. By exchanging such business cards, people can get to know each other in their first acquaintance. In addition, the business card carries contact information such as telephone number, mobile number, and email address for further communication.

Today physical business cards are still most sought after and exchanged by all types of professionals. People collect the physical cards and store them in their card book or stack them together to have them handy. As each professional or business persongets to know more and more people and increase his/her professional network, the number of business cards becomesunwieldy to organize and managing the same becomes chaotic. It takes a lot of time to search or retrieve a particular business card from a collection of hundreds of physical cards in a person’s possession. Even an organized person would leave behind a few cards in different places like home, office, factory etc.,and locating them subsequently becomes cumbersome and sometimes unsuccessful.

Apart from using a business card holder, some people also make use of mobile devices (such as smart phones and tablet computers) to maintain similardata. Such users have to input entries one by one into their mobile devices. Since the card data are stored in memory, it is more convenient than the physical card holder, though it would consume electronic storage space. However, one of the main disadvantages of adding contacts one by onein to a mobile device is that, if the card information is out of date, the user has to look up for newer, more accurate data and enter themonceagain into his mobile device and it is not easy for the user to obtain the most up-to-date data right away as the owner of the card might have moved on. Similarly, in addition to inputting data one by one, it is also not easy for a person to scan every business card that he receives and store the same electronically. Besides consuming electronic storage space, he/shemight miss out a card or two or eventually get tired of the repeated scanning process. The person would then start using his/her discretion whether a particular card is worth scanning at all and would start storing only few cards that he/she would deem important. Later, the card he/she would desperately want to retrieve would precisely be the card he/she had considered not necessary for scanning and storing.

The present invention aims to solve this problem whereby the system enables the user to create his/her own business card digitally by either scanning an existing physical card or making his own card using the design template provided in the application, store the same on the cloud and exchange it with third parties through his/her mobile device. At the same time, the user can receive plurality of digital business cards from his/her associates and access the same whenever necessary for future communication. The most important feature of the invention is that a particular business card gets created only once in the entire networking system. Hence any modification done by the owner in the master business card gets automatically reflected to all the users with whom the owner had earlier shared the original business card.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

An objective of the present invention is to provide a digital business card management system for devices including mobile, laptops, systems, notebooks etc. so as to enable its users to manage the digital business cards more conveniently and easily as well as to obtain the most updated contact information in the business card even if it is modified by the owner or creator of the business card.

The present invention is related to the management of business cards digitally. In one embodiment the business cards can be created in the mobile device and these details can be exchanged with the other users electronically.

In another embodiment, the user can scan the physical hard copy of the business card using the mobile application and share the same cards for further expanding the network of the users.

The present invention further includes the mobile application for organizing the connections conveniently, sharing the card electronically, tracking the profile, mapping the address of any contact and sharing the location.

The disclosed system in the present invention includes a plurality of mobile devices and a cloud server, each of such mobile devices is installed with an application program that provides a user interface. The cloud server provides a business card sharing function and updating functionality. The business card sharing module allows the plurality of users to share their respective business cards with other users. The updating module enables the creator of the business card to update or edit the information in the digital business card which will be automatically stored in the cloud server. As the users access the business cards directly from the server through their mobile, it is ensured that the user always gets the updated information as and when a digital business card is accessed. In other words, the business cards shared by third parties (other users) is a LIVE card as appearing in the mobile of the recipient and dynamically updates every time the sender edits or replaces the card in his/her own mobile.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings illustrate the various embodiments of arrangements, methods, and other aspects of the disclosure. Any person with ordinary skills in the art will appreciate that the illustrated element boundaries (e.g., boxes, groups of boxes, or other shapes) in the figures represent one example of the boundaries. In some examples, one element may be designed as multiple elements, or multiple elements may be designed as one element. In some examples, an element shown as an internal component of one element may be implemented as an external component in another, and vice versa. Further, the elements may not be drawn to scale.

Various embodiments will hereinafter be described in accordance with the appended drawings, which are provided to illustrate and not to limit the scope in any manner, wherein similar designations denote similar elements, and in which:

Figure 1is a schematic view of process of creating business card through the present system;

Figure 2is a schematic viewillustrating process of searching users to whom the digital business card in the cloud server is to be shared through the present system;

Figure 3is a schematic view illustrating process of sharing the digital business card with other users of the system;

Figure 4is a schematic view illustrating process of automatic digital business card replacement through the present system; and

Figure 5shows different features of the digital business card as presented in the application or system.

DETAIL DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Reference will now be made in detail to the exemplary embodiment(s) of the system. Before describing in detail, embodiments that are in accordance with the present disclosure, it should be observed that the embodiments reside primarily in combinations of components of the system.

In this document, the terms "comprises," "comprising," or “including” or any other variation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion, such that a system, method, article, device or apparatus that comprises a list of elements does not include only those elements but may include other elements not expressly listed or inherent to such system, method, article, device, or apparatus. An element proceeded by "comprises ...a" does not,
without more constraints, preclude the existence of additional identical elements in the process, product, method, article, device or apparatus that comprises the element.

Any embodiment described herein is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other embodiments. All of the embodiments described in this detailed description are illustrative, and provided to enable persons skilled in the art to make or use the disclosure and not to limit the scope of the disclosure, which is defined by the claims.

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made to the present invention without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Thus it is intended that the present invention cover the modifications and variations of this invention provided they come within the scope of the appended claims and their equivalents.

The following detailed description contains many specifics for the purposes of illustration, anyone of ordinary skill in the art will readily appreciate that many variations and alterations to the following exemplary details are within the scope of the invention. Accordingly, the following preferred embodiment of the invention is set forth without any loss of generality to, and without imposing limitations upon, the claimed invention.

The term, business card includes online business cards, which are entered by the user, edited by the user and uploaded scanned copies of the other users. The term mobile device includes smart phones, ipads, tabs, computer systems, laptops etc.

The present invention enables the user to create his/her own business card digitally by either scanning an existing physical card or making his own card using the design template provided in the application, store the same on the cloud and exchange it with third parties through his/her mobile device. At the same time, the user can receive plurality of digital business cards from his/her associates and access the same whenever necessary for future communication. The most important feature of the invention is that a particular business card gets created only once in the entire networking system. Hence any modification done by the owner in the master business card gets automatically reflected to all the users with whom the owner had earlier shared the original business card.

The cards so transmitted/shared by various senders/owners of the cards are capable of being viewed in an orderly manner by the recipients’ of such business cards. The recipients can also easily retrieve and communicate through the transmitted business cards in the future. The system also provides for choosing the right person through an ‘Intro Id’ referencing system to transmit the card to. The business card so transmitted and received by the other user is still linked to the sender’s master business card and if the sender at anytime changes/modifies/replaces his master business card upon change of his employment or designation, the original card received and catalogued by the recipients would also automatically change accordingly thereby completely eliminating the requirement of the sender to transmit the modified business card to all the original recipients once again.

The main objective of the invention is to provide a system for creating, editing, processing and transmitting digital business cards between users in order to aid them in contacting others in an easy and effective way through multiple mobile devices accessing a cloud server wherein each of the mobile devices is installed with an application program to provide an user interface. The cloud server connecting the plurality of mobile devices consists of one common database. The selection of the correct user to share one’s business card to is simplified through an ‘Intro Id’ referencing system. If the user is still interested to carry the physical business cards, they can continue using and sharing the same with the "Intro Id" printed on them, so as to enable the receiver trace the user's profile instantly to connect with him/her online.

The system also enables the user to create his/her own business card by choosing from different options provided in the application and save the created business card in the server for his/her future use. In another embodiment, the user can scan his/her physical business card through the handheld mobile device and save the same in the server. In one of the other embodiment, the system allows the user to exchange his/her digital business card with other users. When a useredits or updates his or her digital business card, the updated version automatically replaces the original version in the mobile devices of all the recipients of the original version of the business card. Further, the user can directly call or email other users through the shared digital business cards without actually storing the contact details in his/her own mobile device.Further the user/receiver can navigate to the address mentioned in the business card by tapping on the location icon on the card.

One of the embodiments of the present system (100) includes a plurality of mobile devices and one cloud server (103). Each of such mobile device is installed with an application program which provides a user interface, a scanner application (101) and a design application (102) as shown in Figure 1. The mobile devices connect to the cloud server (103) via internet. A user access the application user interface of the present system and registers himself/ herself as a member. Upon becoming the member, he or she can create only his/her own business card by either scanning through the scanner application (101) in his/her mobile or by making his card through the design application (102) in his/her mobile. The important feature of the invention is that a particular business card gets scanned or made only once in the entire system (100)and it gets saved in the cloud (103). The other users (recipients) need not scan or save the sender’s business card in their devices.

After the user becomes a member of the present system, he or she can edit or update his or her digital business card in the user interface. The system assigns a unique number to each of the registered user upon his or her registration with the system (100), called as “Intro ID” which enables other users to search for a particular user and his/ her card in the present system easily and quickly. The user can type in the ‘Intro Id’ of the recipient (104) in the user interface of the application and this will locate the recipient’s profile (105) in the serverto transmit the business card to the recipient as shown in Figure 2. Each user of the mobile application is allotted a unique ‘Intro id’ at the time of his/her registration which is visible to all the other users of the mobile application.

Upon retrieving the User (105)’s profile, User (106)shares his business card to User (107) as shown in Figure 3. Likewise, a user can can receive plurality of business cards from different senders and upon acceptance of the same can view the same.

Figure 4 illustrates the process of automatic card replacement wherein, the business card thus transmitted by the sender and received by the various recipients is still linked to the sender’s saved business card in cloud server (103) and if the sender at anytime modifies or replaces his/her saved business card (106) by either scanning through the scanner application (101) in his/her mobile or by making his/her card through the design application (102) in his/her mobile, the original card gets updated in Meet intro cloud (103). The updated card is automatically transmitted to all the recipients of the original card (108). This automatic updation completely eliminates the need to transmit the modified business card to all the original recipients once again. This is the unique and more advanced feature of this application. This ensures that the card received by the recipients is a LIVE card and dynamically updates every time the sender edits or replaces the card in his/her own mobile.

Figure 5 describes the different features or the usage of the card. The digital business card can carry contact information of the user. The cards thus transmitted/shared by various senders of the cards are capable of being viewed in an orderly manner by the recipients of such business cards. The recipients can also easily retrieve and communicate through the transmitted business cards. By tapping on the different icons on the business card that has been received, the recipients can perform tasks like calling the sender (109), sending email to the sender (110), viewing sender’s website (111), flipping the sender’s business card front and back (112), viewing the sender’s business card in portrait or landscape mode (113) and navigating to the address tagged to the card by the sender (114).
,CLAIMS:WE CLAIM

1. A system for effective management of digital business cards including a plurality of mobile devices, each of which is installed with an application program that provides an user interface and connected with a cloud server through internet, the said system comprising:
a. creation module configured to create and store a plurality of digital business cards of plurality of users in the server;
b. search module configured to search a plurality of users through a unique identification number given to the said plurality of users;
c. updation module configured to edit a plurality of digital business cards which automatically replaces the old card stored in the cloud server thereby making the business card a LIVE card for all recipients;
d. sharing module configured to grant permission to access the said plurality of digital business cards to other plurality of users; and
e. access module configured to access the shared digital cards by other plurality of users.

2. The system as in Claim 1 wherein the creating module further includes interface module to create a plurality of digital business cards online through the functionalities of the said system and scanner module to scan the physically available business cards and upload in the cloud server.

3. The system as in Claim 1 wherein the updation module enables the user to update or edit his/ her digital business cards stored in the cloud server which automatically replaces the old information and available for a plurality of users to access the same.

4. The system as in Claim 1 wherein sharing module includes the cloud server receiving commands for granting access to view a plurality of digital business cards from a plurality of users who created the said cards in order to share the same with other users.

5. The system as in Claim 1 wherein the digital business card includes name, business designation, educational qualification, company name, email address and phone number.

6. The system as in Claim 1 wherein each of the users has a unique identification number accorded by the system.

7. A method for effective management of digital business cards including a plurality of mobile devices, each of which is installed with an application program that provides an user interface and connected with a cloud server through internet, the said method comprising the steps of:
a. creating and storing a plurality of digital business cards of plurality of users in the server;
b. searching a plurality of users through a unique identification number given to the said plurality of users;
c. updatingand editing a plurality of digital business cards which automatically replaces the old card stored in the cloud server thereby making the business card a LIVE card for all recipients;
d. sharingthe said plurality of digital business cards to other plurality of users; and
e. accessing the shared digital cards by other plurality of users.

8. The method as in Claim 7 wherein the creating a plurality of digital business cards further includes creating a plurality of digital business cards online through the available functionalities and scanning the physically available business cards and uploading in the cloud server.

9. The method as in Claim 7 wherein sharing the digital business cards includes the cloud server receiving commands for granting access to view a plurality of digital business cards from a plurality of users who created the said cards in order to share the same with other users.