This specification defines a profile for the use of XACML in expressing policies for intellectual property control (IPC). It defines standard attribute identifiers useful in such policies, and recommends attribute value ranges for certain attributes.

Status:

This document was last revised or approved by the eXtensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) TC on the above date. The level of approval is also listed above. Check the “Latest Version” or “Latest Approved Version” location noted above for possible later revisions of this document.

Technical Committee members should send comments on this specification to the Technical Committee’s email list. Others should send comments to the Technical Committee by using the “Send A Comment” button on the Technical Committee’s web page at http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/xacml/.

For information on whether any patents have been disclosed that may be essential to implementing this specification, and any offers of patent licensing terms, please refer to the Intellectual Property Rights section of the Technical Committee web page (http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/xacml/ipr.php.

The non-normative errata page for this specification is located at http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/xacml/.

Notices

All capitalized terms in the following text have the meanings assigned to them in the OASIS Intellectual Property Rights Policy (the "OASIS IPR Policy"). The full Policy may be found at the OASIS website.

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OASIS invites any party to contact the OASIS TC Administrator if it is aware of a claim of ownership of any patent claims that would necessarily be infringed by implementations of this specification by a patent holder that is not willing to provide a license to such patent claims in a manner consistent with the IPR Mode of the OASIS Technical Committee that produced this specification. OASIS may include such claims on its website, but disclaims any obligation to do so.

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Table of Contents

1 Introduction. 5

1.1 Glossary. 6

1.2 Terminology. 7

1.3 Normative References. 7

1.4 Non-Normative References. 7

2.1 Resource Attributes. 9

2.2 Subject Attributes. 10

2.2.1 Nationality. 10

2.2.2 Organization. 10

2.3 Environment Attributes. 10

2.3.1 Location. 10

2.4 Action Attributes. 10

2.4.1 Read. 10

2.4.2 Edit 10

2.4.3 Storage. 10

2.4.4 Physical transmission. 11

2.4.5 Electronic transmission. 11

2.4.6 Encryption type. 11

3.1 Profile Identifier 12

4 Conformance. 13

4.1 Attribute Identifiers. 13

4.2 Attribute Values. 13

A. Acknowledgements. 14

B. Non-Normative Text 15

C. Revision History. 16

1 Introduction

{Non-normative}

This specification defines a profile for the use of the OASIS eXtensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) [XACML] to write and enforce policies for the purpose of providing access control for resources deemed intellectual property (hereinafter referred to as IP). Use of this profile requires no changes or extensions to the [XACML] standard.

This specification begins with a non-normative discussion of the topics and terms of interest in this profile. The normative section of the specification describes the attributes defined by this profile and provides recommended usage patterns for attribute values.

This specification assumes the reader is somewhat familiar with XACML. A brief overview sufficient to understand these examples is available in [XACMLIntro].

For our purposes, IP may be defined as legal property rights over mental creations. IP owners can receive exclusive rights to their creations, if certain conditions are met. These exclusive rights can be exploited by the owner for profit, either directly through sales of products, or indirectly through licensing.

IP is an asset; perhaps the most valuable asset an organization has. IP can be licensed to other organizations in cases of outsourcing and/or to generate revenue from IP sharing arrangements.

IP value tends to increase when properly protected, though there are differing points of diminishing returns. IP protection doesn’t guarantee security; it just provides a compensation mechanism for cases of unlawful exploitation. IP valuation and protection are often criteria for venture capital investors.

Broadly speaking, there are four main categories of intellectual property: copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, and patents. Copyrights confer time-limited exclusive rights of ownership and/or use to the creator of the work. A copyright is typically used to protect artistic works such as photographs, music, books, etc. Copyrights are internationally recognized, though there are differences in the terms and enforcement.

Trademarks are the IP protection scheme of names, logos, symbols, products, etc. For example, in the U.S. there are 2 main types:

• For general usage, or for not-yet-registered trademarks ™

• For trademarks registered with the USPTO ®

Trademarks are also internationally recognized through the Madrid system, which requires registration through the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a United Nations agency. The World Trade Organization also sets legal minimum standards for IP protection among member nations.

Patents are property rights granted to an inventor to prevent others from profiting from the invention for a limited time in exchange for public disclosure of the invention when the patent is granted. Patents apply to processes, machines, articles of manufacture, or composition of matter (including biological), or derived innovations. Patents require detailed disclosure of information, designs, processes, etc. Patents are administered in U.S. by the USPTO, and are internationally recognized by WTO TRIPS, WIPO, and European Patent Convention.

Trade secrets are IP protection of formulae, processes, designs, information, etc. that are not easily obtainable that a business uses for competitive advantage. They are often protected by legal contracts such as non-disclosure agreements, non-compete agreements, or proprietary information agreements. Trade secrets are the most common form of industrial IP protection, and outnumber patents. However, trade secrets are often categorized as “proprietary” information, and may not be discovered as trade secrets unless litigated. They are not federally protected in the U.S., though most states have adopted the Uniform Trade Secrets Act. However, theft of trade secrets is prohibited by U.S. Economic Espionage Act of 1996. Trade secret status requires less disclosure than patents. Trade secrets are well protected by European Patent Convention as “know how”. No international treaties protect trade secrets, though WTO TRIPS, GATT, and NAFTA have provisions for trade secret protection.

Other IP related concepts, such as public domain, PII, proprietary, and third-party proprietary will be defined in the glossary section.

The attributes and glossary terms defined below are not an exclusive or comprehensive list of all the attributes that may be required for rendering authorization decisions concerning IP. For example, PDPs would have to evaluate other entitlements, such as group membership, from PIPs. This profile is meant as a point of reference for implementing IP controls, and may be extended as needed for organizational purposes. Software vendors who choose to implement this profile should take the attributes herein as a framework for IP controls, but allow individual implementers some flexibility in constructing their own XACML-based authorization policies and PDPs.

The goal of this profile is to create a framework of common IP-related attributes upon which authorization decisions can be rendered. This profile will also provide XACML software developers and authorization policy writers guidance on supporting IP control use cases.

1.1 Glossary

Authority

The entity which is responsible for authorizing the transaction. This can be a particular company, organization, or contract.

A form of limited and temporary government-granted monopoly which gives the creator of an original work some rights for a certain time period in relation to that work, including its publication, distribution and adaptation; after which time the work is said to enter the public domain. Copyright applies to concrete expressions of information, but not the information itself.

Country

A national political administrative unit recognized for diplomatic and trade purposes by governments and other international organizations.

IP-Designee

A designation for the persons or entities with designated intellectual property rights.

IP-Owner

A designation for the entity which owns the intellectual property.

License

An agreement granting rights in Intellectual Property.

Location

The location of the requesting principal. Values of acceptable locations may be specified by legal contract, and may be specific to implementations. PDPs and PEPs SHOULD be configured for mutual understanding of said values.

Nationality

A country of which a person is a citizen.

Organization

A company or other legal entity of which a person can be an employee or agent.

Patent

A set of exclusive rights granted by a government to an inventor or his assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for a disclosure of an invention.

PII

Personally identifiable information. For example, U.S. Social Security Numbers.

Proprietary

Information protected by an organization by technical controls. May sometimes be used synonymously with “trade secret”.

Public domain

Information that has been demoted from copyright, trademark, trade secret, or patented status. No intellectual property controls are usually necessary for items considered public domain.

Third-party proprietary

Intellectual property which has been legally entrusted to the care and use of another organization.

Trademark

A distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products, and/or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source of origin, and to distinguish its products or services from those of other entities.

Trade secret

A formula, practice, process, design, instrument, pattern, or compilation of information which is not generally known or reasonably ascertainable, by which a business can obtain an economic advantage over competitors or customers. In some jurisdictions, such secrets are referred to as "confidential information" or "classified information".

1.2 Terminology

The key words “MUST”, “MUST NOT”, “REQUIRED”, “SHALL”, “SHALL NOT”, “SHOULD”, “SHOULD NOT”, “RECOMMENDED”, “MAY”, and “OPTIONAL” in this document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].

1.3 Normative References

[RFC2119] S. Bradner, Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels, http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt, IETF RFC 2119, March 1997.

[XACML3] OASIS Committee Specification 01, eXtensible access control markup language (XACML) Version 3.0. August 2010. http://docs.oasis-open.org/xacml/3.0/xacml-3.0-core-spec-cs-01-en.doc

[XACML2] OASIS Standard, "eXtensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) Version 2.0", February 2005. http://docs.oasis-open.org/xacml/2.0/access_control-xacml-2.0-core-spec-os.pdf

[XACML1] OASIS Standard, "eXtensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) Version 1.0", February 2003. http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/2406/oasis-xacml-1.0.pdf

1.4 Non-Normative References

[XACMLIntro] OASIS XACML TC, A Brief Introduction to XACML, 14 March 2003, http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/2713/Brief_Introduction_to_XACML.html

[ISO3166] ISO 3166 Maintenance agency (ISO 3166/MA), http://www.iso.org/iso/country_codes.htm

1.5 Scope

Many intellectual property access control decisions can be made on the basis of the resource’s copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret, or other custom classification. This profile defines standard XACML attributes for these properties, and recommends the use of standardized attribute values.

In practice, an organization’s intellectual property protection policies will be a mixture of rules derived from laws and regulations, along with enterprise-specific rules derived from government-approved bilateral or multilateral agreements with other organizations.

1.6 Use cases

PDPs may need to consider intellectual property protection schemes when evaluating authorization decisions. This profile is designed to provide a framework of additional <Attributes> for such decisions.

Copyright use case: an authorization decision depends on whether or not the resource in question is protected by copyright.

Trademark use case: an authorization decision depends on whether or not the resource in question is a designated trademark.

Patent use case: an authorization decision depends whether or not the resource in question is protected by a patent. Patent designation may follow.

Trade secret use case: an authorization decision depends whether or not the resource in question is designated as a trade secret.

PII use case: an authorization decision depends whether or not the resource in question is designated as personally identifiable information.

Third-party proprietary: an authorization decision depends whether or not the resource in question is designated as a third-party proprietary resource.

License: a calling PEP may need to log that a particular license applies to the authorization decision rendered by the PDP.

1.7 Disclaimer

NOTHING IN THIS PROFILE IS INTENDED TO BE A LEGALLY CORRECT INTERPRETATION OR APPLICATION OF U.S. OR ANY GOVERNMENT INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAWS OR REGULATIONS. USE OF THIS PROFILE IN AN ACCESS CONTROL SYSTEM DOES NOT CONSTITUTE COMPLIANCE WITH ANY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RESTRICTIONS. THIS PROFILE HAS NOT BEEN REVIEWED OR ENDORSED BY THE U.S. OR ANY OTHER GOVERNMENT AGENCIES RESPONSIBLE FOR ENFORCING INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAWS, NOR BY ANY LEGAL EXPERT IN THIS FIELD.

Organizations that use this profile should ensure their intellectual property protection by engaging qualified professional legal services.

2 Profile

2.1 Resource Attributes

2.1.1 IPC-Type

The IPC-Type classification value shall be designated with the following attribute identifier:

urn:oasis:names:tc:xacml:3.0:ipc:resource:ipc-type

The DataType of this attribute is http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string. This attribute data may contain multiple values. Examples of acceptable values of the attribute SHALL be “PUBLIC”, “PII”, “COPYRIGHT”, “TRADEMARK”, “PATENT”, “TRADESECRET”, “PROPRIETARY”, or “THIRD-PARTY PROPRIETARY”. Other values may also be defined later, depending on an organization’s authorization needs.

The use of “THIRD-PARTY PROPRIETARY” may introduce ambiguity in a federated authorization model. In that case, “PROPRIETARY” with a corresponding IP-Owner value SHOULD be used to distinguish IP owned by an entity other than the PDP’s home organization.

2.1.2 IPC-Data

IPC-Data classification values shall be designated with the following attribute identifier:

urn:oasis:names:tc:xacml:3.0:ipc:resource:ipc-data

The DataType of this attribute is http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string. This attribute data may contain multiple values. The purpose of this attribute is to convey additional data about the intellectual property resource, such as author names, patent numbers, proprietary tracking information, etc.

2.1.3 IP-Owner

IP-Owner classification values shall be designated with the following attribute identifier:

urn:oasis:names:tc:xacml:3.0:ipc:resource:ip-owner

The DataType of this attribute is http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string. This attribute data may contain multiple values. This attribute names the owner of the IP.

2.1.4 IP-Designee

IP-Designee classification values shall be designated with the following attribute identifier:

urn:oasis:names:tc:xacml:3.0:ipc:resource:ip-designee

The DataType of this attribute is http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string. This attribute data may contain multiple values. This attribute names the designated custodian of the IP.

2.1.5 License

License classification values shall be designated with the following attribute identifier:

urn:oasis:names:tc:xacml:3.0:ipc:resource:license

The DataType of this attribute is http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string. This attribute data may contain multiple values.

This attribute can be used to indicate whether or not a specific resource is governed by a particular license arrangement.

2.2 Subject Attributes

2.2.1 Nationality

Nationality classification values shall be designated with the following attribute identifier:

urn:oasis:names:tc:xacml:3.0:ipc:subject:nationality

The DataType of this attribute is http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string. This attribute data may contain multiple values. The value of this attribute MUST be in the range of 2-letter country codes defined by [ISO3166].

Nationality shall denote the country in which the subject currently has legal status as a “national” or citizen.

2.2.2 Organization

Organization classification values shall be designated with the following attribute identifier:

urn:oasis:names:tc:xacml:3.0:ipc:subject:organization

The DataType of this attribute is http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string. This attribute data may contain multiple values.

Organization shall denote the organization to which the subject in the request belongs. A common scheme such as DUNS SHOULD be used to promote interoperability.

2.3 Environment Attributes

2.3.1 Location

Location classification values shall be designated with the following attribute identifier:

urn:oasis:names:tc:xacml:3.0:ipc:environment:location

The DataType of this attribute is http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string. This attribute data should have a single value.

2.4 Action Attributes

2.4.1 Read

Read classification values shall be designated with the following attribute identifier:

urn:oasis:names:tc:xacml:3.0:ipc:action:read

The DataType of this attribute is http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#boolean.

2.4.2 Edit

Edit classification values shall be designated with the following attribute identifier:

urn:oasis:names:tc:xacml:3.0:ipc:action:edit

The DataType of this attribute is http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#boolean.

2.4.3 Storage

Storage classification values shall be designated with the following attribute identifier:

urn:oasis:names:tc:xacml:3.0:ipc:action:storage

The DataType of this attribute is http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#boolean.

2.4.4 Physical transmission

Physical transmission classification values shall be designated with the following attribute identifier:

urn:oasis:names:tc:xacml:3.0:ipc:action:physical-transmission

The DataType of this attribute is http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#boolean. The best example of this type of action would be printing.

2.4.5 Electronic transmission

Electronic transmission classification values shall be designated with the following attribute identifier:

urn:oasis:names:tc:xacml:3.0:ipc:action:electronic-transmission

The DataType of this attribute is http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string. This attribute data may contain multiple values. Examples of this action would be emailing, file transfer, or moving from one electronic location to another.

2.4.6 Encryption type

Encryption type classification values shall be designated with the following attribute identifier:

urn:oasis:names:tc:xacml:3.0:ipc:action:encryption-type

The DataType of this attribute is http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string. This attribute data may contain multiple values. Examples of valid data would be AES128-CBC, RSA2048, etc.

2.4.7 Marking

Marking classification values shall be designated with the following attribute identifier:

urn:oasis:names:tc:xacml:3.0:ipc:action:marking

The DataType of this attribute is http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string. This attribute data may contain multiple values. Examples of marks could be “Proprietary”, “Confidential”, etc. Other schemes may refer to this activity as “labeling”, but marking and labeling are considered synonymous for these purposes.

2.4.8 Disposal

Disposal classification values shall be designated with the following attribute identifier:

urn:oasis:names:tc:xacml:3.0:ipc:action:disposal

The DataType of this attribute is http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string. This attribute data may contain multiple values. An example of a disposal value would be “delete” in the case of electronic storage. Additional disposal related actions may be defined as obligations.

2.4.9 Authority

Authority classification values shall be designated with the following attribute identifier:

urn:oasis:names:tc:xacml:3.0:ipc:action:authority

The DataType of this attribute is http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string. This attribute data may contain multiple values.

This attribute can be used to describe the associated contract or statement of work authorizing the access. Other types of values could be used depending on an organization’s needs.

3 Identifiers

This profile defines the following URN identifiers.

3.1 Profile Identifier

The following identifier SHALL be used as the identifier for this profile when an identifier in the form of a URI is required.

urn:oasis:names:tc:xacml:3.0:profiles:ipc

4 Conformance

Conformance to this profile is defined for policies and requests generated and transmitted within and between XACML systems.

4.1 Attribute Identifiers

Conformant XACML policies and requests SHALL use the attribute identifiers defined in Section 2 for their specified purpose.

4.2 Attribute Values

Conformant XACML policies and requests SHALL use attribute values in the specified range or patterns as defined for each attribute in Section 2 (when a range or pattern is specified).

NOTE: In order to process conformant XACML policies and requests correctly, PIP and PEP modules may have to translate native data values into the datatypes and formats specified in this profile.

A. Acknowledgements

The following individuals have participated in the creation of this specification and are gratefully acknowledged:

Participants:

John Tolbert, The Boeing Company

Committee members during profile development:

Person	Organization	Role
Erik Rissanen	Axiomatics AB	Voting Member
Ludwig Seitz	Axiomatics AB	Member
Paul Tyson	Bell Helicopter Textron Inc.	Member
Ronald Jacobson	CA*	Member
Masum Hasan	Cisco Systems, Inc.*	Member
Anil Tappetla	Cisco Systems, Inc.*	Member
Tim Moses	Entrust*	Member
Guy Denton	IBM	Member
Craig Forster	IBM	Member
Richard Franck	IBM	Member
Michiharu Kudo	IBM	Member
Michael McIntosh	IBM	Member
Vernon Murdoch	IBM	Member
Ron Williams	IBM	Member
David Chadwick	Individual	Member
Bill Parducci*	Individual	Chair
Abbie Barbir	Nortel	Member
Harry Haury	NuParadigm Government Systems, Inc.	Member
Kamalendu Biswas	Oracle Corporation	Member
Willem de Pater	Oracle Corporation	Member
Rich Levinson	Oracle Corporation	Secretary
Hal Lockhart	Oracle Corporation	Chair
Prateek Mishra	Oracle Corporation	Member
Anil Saldhana	Red Hat	Voting Member
Darran Rolls	SailPoint Technologies	Member
Daniel Engovatov	Stream Dynamics, Inc.	Member
Dilli Arumugam	Sun Microsystems	Voting Member
Seth Proctor	Sun Microsystems	Voting Member
Aravindan Ranganathan	Sun Microsystems	Member
John Tolbert	The Boeing Company*	Voting Member
Martin Smith	US Department of Homeland Security*	Member
Duane DeCouteau	Veterans Health Administration	Voting Member
David Staggs	Veterans Health Administration	Voting Member

B. Non-Normative Text

C. Revision History

Revision	Date	Editor	Changes Made
CD 1	6/18/2009	John Tolbert	Initial committee draft.
WD 2	2/25/2010	John Tolbert	Revised committee draft.
CD 2	5/5/10	John Tolbert	Revised committee draft, fixed links and formatting.