|Submissions

Submission request to W3C (W3C Team Comment)

1. XML Advanced Electronic Signatures (XAdES)

which collectively are referred to as "the submission". We request the submission be known as the ETSI XML Advanced Electronic Signatures submission.

Abstract

This note (XAdES) extends the IETF/W3CXML-Signature Syntax and Processing specification [XMLDSIG] into the domain of non-repudiation by defining XML formats for advanced electronic signatures that remain valid over long periods and are compliant with the European "Directive 1999/93/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 December 1999 on a Community framework for electronic signatures" [EU-DIR-ESIG] (also denoted as "the Directive" or the "European Directive" in the rest of the present document) and incorporate additional useful information in common uses cases. This includes evidence as to its validity even if the signer or verifying party later attempts to deny (repudiates) the validity of the signature.

An advanced electronic signature aligned with the present document can, in consequence, be used for arbitration in case of a dispute between the signer and verifier, which may occur at some later time, even years later.

Change control

Until the submission becomes part of a W3C initiative, any comments including changes can be communicated to the editors. The editors would (after discussions with the interested ETSI members) make changes to the W3C note as well as the underlying ETSI specifications. In the same way, if and when the underlying ETSI specifications change, we will submit corresponding revisions to this note.

Intellectual property Rights

Copyrights

ETSI hereby grants to the W3C, a perpetual, nonexclusive, royalty-free, world-wide right and license under any ETSI copyrights in this contribution to copy, publish and distribute the contribution under the W3C document licenses, on condition that ETSI is recognized as the source and copyright holder.

Additionally, should the submission be used as a contribution towards a W3C Activity, ETSI grants a right and license of the same scope to any derivative works prepared by the W3C and based on, or incorporating all or part of, the contribution. ETSI further agrees that any derivative works of this contribution prepared by the W3C shall be solely owned by the W3C.

Patents

ETSI members have the obligation under Section 4.1 of the ETSI IPR Policy, Annex 6 of the Rules of Procedure, to inform ETSI of Essential IPRs they become aware of. This section covers the obligation to notify its own IPRs but also other company's IPRs. The members are invited:

• to investigate in their company whether their company does own IPRs which are, or are likely to become Essential in respect of the work of the Technical Body
• to notify to the Chairman or to the ETSI Director-General all potential IPRs that their company may own, by means of the IPR Statement and the Licensing declaration forms that they can obtain from the ETSI Technical Officer.

Without performing an exhaustive search, the submitter is not aware of any patents required to implement this note.

Suggested action

We suggest that the Consortium publish it as a note as first step. Further, we would like to see the note be part of the XML Signature (or another suitable W3C) initiative and eventually integrated into appropriate W3C specifications like the W3C XML-Signature Syntax and Processing standard.

Resources

To help with this work, we expect to be able to provide no resources to the Consortium except as mentioned in the change control paragraph.

Contact

Inquiries from the public or press about this submission should be directed to the editors

Submitted

this 19nth day of November, 2002),

Krishna Sankar, W3C AC rep for Cisco Systems