Network Working Group                                        M. Mealling
Internet-Draft                                  Refactored Networks, LLC
Expires: September 19, 2005                               March 18, 2005


     A Uniform Resource Name Namespace For The EPCglobal Electronic
                           Product Code (EPC)
                     draft-mealling-epc-urn-00.txt

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Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005).

Abstract

   This document describes a URN namespace that will identify various
   objects within the EPCglobal system for identifying products within
   ecommerce and supply chain management applications.




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1.  Introduction

   The EPCglobal Network is set of specifications for reading, managing
   and acting on object codes plus other sensor data as products pass
   through a supply chain.  Events and metadata about a product are
   stored in EPC Information Services (EPC-IS) that are essentially web
   services that implement agreed upon schema and services.

   Each object that is tracked by the EPCglobal Network is identified by
   one or more managed identifiers.  In many cases these identification
   systems existed prior to the Internet becoming widely used.  One such
   namespace is the Global Trade Item Number, or GTIN.  GTINs are widely
   used in global commerce and are managed jointly by the European
   Article Numbering (EAN) Association and the Uniform Code Council
   (UCC).  In order for the EPCglobal Network to leverage the Internet
   to the fullest extent possible, the GTIN namespace (and others such
   as Global Location Numbers (GLNs), Serialized Shipping Container Code
   (SSCC), etc) need to be directly compatible with the URI family of
   identifiers.

   The use of GTINs, GLNs and SSCCs are all managed by the EAN.UCC
   partnership known as EPCglobal, Inc.  For these, and possibly future
   namespaces, a single Uniform Resource Name (URN) Namespace ID (NID)
   is being requested: 'epc'.  Each of the namespaces mentioned will
   have a separate sub-space beneath the top level 'epc' NID.

   In addition to existing supply chain naming systems, the EPCglobal
   Network will require new namespaces for naming system components.  In
   many cases the EPCglobal Network is XML [10] based and as such will
   require naming schemes for its XML schema [8] and various namespaces
   [9].

   Since the EPCglobal Network is engineered for wide spread and general
   use, this namespace specification is a formal one and the namespace
   ID that is being requested is 'epc'.  It is important to note that it
   is the explicit intent that various sub-namespaces actually name
   real, physical objects and/or corporeal entities.

2.  Specification Template

   Namespace ID:

         "epc" requested.

   Registration Information:






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         Registration Version Number: 1
         Registration Date: 2005-02-15

   Declared registrant of the namespace:

         EPCglobal, Inc.  is a joint venture of EAN and the UCC
         Princeton Pike Corporate Center
         1009 Lenox Drive, Suite 202
         Lawrenceville, NJ 08648, USA
         msouthall@epcglobalus.org
         Tel: +1-609-620-4542

   Declaration of structure:

         The normative specification of the structure of the EPC
         namespace is "EPC Tag Data Standards" [7].  The examples given
         below are not normative.

         The 'epc' namespace is a set of sub-namespaces that can be
         extended in the future.  The following ABNF defines how the
         sub-namespaces are identified and any restrictions on their
         syntax (definitions not specified below can be found in RFC
         2141 [1]):


   EPC-URN                 = "urn:epc:" sub-namespace-name ":" sub-namespace
   sub-namespace-name = <let-num> [ 1*<let-num-hyp> ]
   sub-namespace      = <URN chars>
   <let-num-hyp> ::= <upper> | <lower> | <number> | "-"
   <upper>       ::= "A" | "B" | "C" | "D" | "E" | "F" | "G" | "H" |
                     "I" | "J" | "K" | "L" | "M" | "N" | "O" | "P" |
                     "Q" | "R" | "S" | "T" | "U" | "V" | "W" | "X" |
                     "Y" | "Z"

   <lower>       ::= "a" | "b" | "c" | "d" | "e" | "f" | "g" | "h" |
                     "i" | "j" | "k" | "l" | "m" | "n" | "o" | "p" |
                     "q" | "r" | "s" | "t" | "u" | "v" | "w" | "x" |
                     "y" | "z"

   <number>      ::= "0" | "1" | "2" | "3" | "4" | "5" | "6" | "7" |
                     "8" | "9"

         For example, the sub-namespace 'sgtin' has the following
         definition (this ABNF is non-normative):







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   SGTIN-URI     = "urn:epc:id:sgtin:" SGTINURIBody
   SGTINURIBody     = 2*(PaddedNumericComponent ".") NumericComponent
   NumericComponent = ZeroComponent | NonZeroComponent
   ZeroComponent    = "0"
   NonZeroComponent = NonZeroDigit *Digit
   PaddedNumericComponent = *Digit
   Digit = "0" | NonZeroDigit
   NonZeroDigit = "1" | "2" | "3" | "4" | "5" | "6" | "7" | "8" | "9"

          This equates to a namespace that has three period separated
         series of digits:

                        urn:epc:id:sgtin:900100.0003456.1234567

          The first series is a company prefix, the 2nd denotes a
         product reference assigned by that company, and the third is a
         serial number for a specific instance of their product.  Note
         that leading zeros are significant.

   Relevant ancillary documentation:

         The standards that define the EPCglobal Network and the
         processes for creating new sub-namespaces are managed by
         EPCglobal, Inc and can be found on its website.  Several
         sub-namespaces are defined in the "EPC Tag Data Standards" [7]
         and the "PML Core Specification 1.0" [6] specifications.

   Identifier uniqueness considerations:

         The namespaces that make up the 'epc' namespace are all managed
         by an organization with almost 50 years of namespace management
         experience.  In all cases (existing or new) the uniqueness of
         each namespace is an inherent part of the EPCglobal Network.

   Identifier persistence considerations:

         The assignment process guarantees that names are not reassigned
         and that the binding between the name and and its resource is
         permanent, regardless of any standards or organizational
         changes.

   Process of identifier assignment:

         Names are assigned by the EPCglobal standards publication
         process and by any entities that are sub-delegated by
         EPCglobal.  It is important to note that in many cases the
         names assigned will explicitly denote physical objects and not
         an electronic representation of that object.  For example, a



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         'get' type operation on some identifiers can cause a physical
         object to be transported from one physical location to another.

   Process of identifier resolution:

         Certain sub-namespaces are resolved via the Object Naming
         Service which is defined in "Auto-ID Object Naming Service
         (ONS) 1.0" [5] which is a valid implementation of the Dynamic
         Delegation Discovery System that is defined in RFC 3401 [4].

   Rules for Lexical Equivalence:

         The entire URN is case-sensitive.

   Conformance with URN Syntax:

         There are no additional characters reserved except as noted in
         the ABNF above.

   Validation mechanism:

         In the case of each sub-namespace there will be namespace
         specific rules for determining validity.  In each case the
         reader is referred to the appropriate EPC Global maintained
         documentation.

   Scope:

         Global


3.  IANA Considerations

   This document includes a URN Namespace registration that is to be
   entered into the IANA registry for URN NIDs.

4.  Namespace Considerations

   Due to EPCglobal Inc being a partnership between the two
   internationally recognized authoritaties for identifiers the EPC
   contains, this namespace represents the best approach to naming
   products and entities within the world of supply chain management and
   ecommerce in general.  There are no other alternative namespaces that
   have the level of authority and industry acceptance that the EPC
   does.






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5.  Community Considerations

   The EPCglobal Network is intended to bring the Internet to the world
   of supply chain management and beyond.  It can be used to tie
   physical objects to their virtual descriptions and as such has many
   wide ranging applications for the average Internet use.  Thus it is
   very much the intent that this namespace and the entire EPCglobal
   Network consider the entire Internet as the scope of its community.

6.  Security Considerations

   The EPCglobal Network is based almost exclusively on Internet and Web
   standards.  Thus the security impacts of each of its underlying
   technologies should be examined for weaknesses and threats.  The
   primary threats will come from the fact that these names will
   identify physical things that can be of high value, thus the
   temptation to spoof metadata about that identifier (its cost, size,
   etc) will be much greater.  Therefore the role of digital signatures,
   secure resolution mechanisms and trust relationships is very
   fundamental to the system.

7.  References

7.1  Normative References

   [1]  Moats, R., "URN Syntax", RFC 2141, May 1997.

   [2]  Crocker, D., Ed. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
        Specifications: ABNF", RFC 2234, November 1997.

   [3]  Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R. and L. Masinter, "Uniform Resource
        Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax", RFC 2396, August 1998.

   [4]  Mealling, M., "Dynamic Delegation Discovery System (DDDS) Part
        One: The Comprehensive DDDS", RFC 3401, October 2002.

   [5]  Mealling, M., "EPCglobal Network Object Name Service (ONS) 1.0",
        EPCglobal ONS 1.0, August 2003,
        <http://www.epcglobalinc.org/standards_technology/Secure/v1.0/WD
        -ons-1.0-20030930.pdf>.

   [6]  EPCglobal, Inc., "PML Core Specification 1.0", EPCglobal PML
        1.0, September 2003,
        <http://www.epcglobalinc.org/standards_technology/Secure/v1.0/PM
        L_Core_Specification_v1.0.pdf>.

   [7]  EPCglobal, Inc., "EPC(tm) Tag Data Standards Version 1.1, Rev
        1.26", EPCglobal Tag Data Standards 1.1, Feburary 2004,



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        <http://www.epcglobalinc.org/standards_technology/specifications
        .html>.

7.2  Non-normative References

   [8]   Maloney, M., Beech, D., Thompson, H. and N. Mendelsohn, "XML
         Schema Part 1: Structures Second Edition", W3C
         REC REC-xmlschema-1-20041028, October 2004.

   [9]   Tobin, R., Hollander, D., Layman, A. and T. Bray, "Namespaces
         in XML 1.1", W3C REC REC-xml-names11-20040204, February 2004.

   [10]  Yergeau, F., Paoli, J., Sperberg-McQueen, C., Bray, T. and E.
         Maler, "Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Third Edition)",
         W3C REC REC-xml-20040204, February 2004.


Author's Address

   Michael Mealling
   Refactored Networks, LLC
   1635 Old Hwy 41
   Suite 112, Box 138
   Kennesaw, GA  30152
   US

   Phone: +1 678 581 9656
   Email: michael@refactored-networks.com
   URI:   http://www.refactored-networks.com






















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