Verifiable Credentials Working Group - IPR

Licensing Commitments

Participants in this group have made certain licensing commitments by joining the group. In addition to these Participants, non-participating W3C Member may have made licensing commitments.

W3C Members not participating in this group who wish to make the same licensing commitments for specifications developed by this group may do so through a Join form for licensing commitments from non-participating Members.

Other parties making a substantive contribution to the work of the group need to make a Royalty-Free patent commitment, as described in section 6.2.6 of the Process. Team contacts will provide instructions for recording the non-participant licensing commitment before the contribution can be accepted.

Participation

W3C Member Organizations

• 360
• Adobe
• Akamai Technologies
• Anonyome Labs, Inc.
• Arizona State University
• Autodesk
• Block, Inc.
• CANTON CONSULTING
• Centre for Inclusive Design
• China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT)
• Conexxus
• Consensys
• DappWorks Technology Inc.
• Department of Homeland Security
• Dfinity Stiftung
• Digital Bazaar
• Digital Contract Design
• Entersekt
• Fundacion CTIC
• Gen
• GLEIF
• Google LLC
• Gooroomee Inc.
• GS1
• IDnow GmbH
• Inrupt Inc.
• INSIGHT - The Centre for Data Analytics
• Institut Mines-Télécom
• Intel Corporation
• Jolocom GmbH
• Kaiser Permanente
• Keio University
• Koodos Labs
• Legendary Requirements
• LG Electronics
• Mastercard Incorporated
• Mattr Limited
• Mavennet Systems Inc.
• Merchant Advisory Group
• mesur.io
• Microsoft Corporation
• Ministry of Digital Affairs, Taiwan
• MITRE Corporation
• OpenLink Software Inc.
• Ping Identity
• Protocol Labs
• RANDA Solutions
• Salesforce
• Sony Group Corporation
• Spruce Systems, Inc.
• SURF bv
• Switchchord
• The New York Times
• Trinsic
• Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
• Universities Admissions Centre
• Ver.iD
• Visa
• Wiley

Note: Log in to see links to organizations if you have member access

Invited Experts

• Christopher Allen
• Greg Bernstein
• David Chadwick
• Sebastian Crane
• Paolo De Rosa
• Michael Jones
• Anthony Nadalin
• Brian Richter
• Samuel Smith
• Nicholas Steele
• Kaliya Young
• Dmitri Zagidulin

Team members

• Kazuyuki Ashimura
• Ivan Herman

See also the list of individuals participating in this group.

The Call for Participation for this group was announced on 2022-06-13; see the Patent Policy FAQ for information about continued participation before re-joining the group.

Specifications published by the Group

The following is the list of specifications produced by the Verifiable Credentials Working Group that have associated disclosures obligations, and possible licensing obligations under the W3C Patent Policy.

Document under the W3C Patent Policy	Patent Disclosure	Patent Exclusion
Verifiable Credentials Data Model v1.1	disclose	exclude
Verifiable Credentials Data Model v2.0	disclose	exclude
Verifiable Credential Data Integrity 1.0	disclose	exclude
JSON Web Signatures for Data Integrity Proofs	disclose	exclude
Data Integrity EdDSA Cryptosuites v1.0	disclose	exclude
Data Integrity ECDSA Cryptosuites v1.0	disclose	exclude
Securing Verifiable Credentials using JOSE and COSE	disclose	exclude
Bitstring Status List v1.0	disclose	exclude
Data Integrity BBS Cryptosuites v1.0	disclose	exclude
Verifiable Credentials JSON Schema Specification	disclose	exclude

Document not/no longer under the W3C Patent Policy	Patent Disclosure	Patent Exclusion
Verifiable Credentials Use Cases	disclose	Exclusion is not possible (document not under PP)
Verifiable Credentials Implementation Guidelines 1.0	disclose	Exclusion is not possible (document not under PP)
VC Specifications Directory	disclose	Exclusion is not possible (document not under PP)

Patent Disclosures and Claim Exclusions

This section summarizes patent disclosures by participants in W3C's Verifiable Credentials Working Group as required by section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.

W3C takes no position regarding either:

• the validity or scope of any intellectual property right or other rights that might be claimed to pertain to the implementation or use of the technology, or
• the extent to which any license under such rights might or might not be available from those not participating in this group.

Where disclosure is required by a W3C Member, the AC Representative makes the disclosure.

Anyone else may also make a disclosure.

Known Disclosures

No patent disclosures have been made for any specifications of this group.

How to Make a Patent Disclosure

W3C Members and Invited Experts (including those not participating in this group) wishing to disclose a patent for any specification produced by the Verifiable Credentials Working Group should use the Verifiable Credentials Working Group patent disclosure form.

Disclosures from the general public should be sent to the W3C Staff.

For specifications developed under the W3C Patent Policy, parties that commit to the W3C Royalty-Free Licensing Terms are not required to disclose patents. Any party (not just the Working Group Participants) may commit to the W3C Royalty-Free Licensing Terms and may do so by following the instructions in the next section.

Claim Exclusions

Only Verifiable Credentials Working Group participants may exclude patent claims concerning specifications developed under the W3C Patent Policy, per section 4 of the W3C Patent Policy. To make an exclusion, participants should use the Verifiable Credentials Working Group patent claim exclusion form, but only after first disclosing the patent.

Exclusion Opportunities

The Patent Policy FAQ provides detailed information about exclusion opportunities, that is, when a Working Group Participant can exclude a patent claim.

Each exclusion opportunity has a duration. See section 4.1 of the W3C Patent Policy for information on how the exclusion deadline is calculated.

At each exclusion opportunity, Participants may exclude patent claims with respect to a body of text. The Exclusion Draft is the reference body of text for the current exclusion opportunity.

Note: At each new exclusion opportunity (e.g., in the case of a second Candidate Recommendation Snapshot), exclusions are only with respect to differences since the previous reference body of text. These differences may be less than an entire document, and the summary below does not address that granularity. Also, in some edge cases (discussed in the FAQ), Participants, depending on when they joined the Working Group, will have different Exclusion Drafts; the summary below does not reflect this case.

Exclusion Opportunities

Data Integrity BBS Cryptosuites v1.0

Call for exclusion started on 2024-04-04, opportunity until 2024-06-03

Additional Licensing Information

As described in section 5 of the W3C Patent Policy:

All Working Group participants are encouraged to provide a contact from which licensing information can be obtained and other relevant licensing information. Any such information will be made publicly available along with the patent disclosures for the Working Group in question.

Patent holders may:

1. Provide additional licensing information for documents produced by this Working Group
2. Provide the same additional licensing information for all documents with associated licensing obligations produced by this Working Group, or
3. Provide additional licensing information for any W3C document with associated licensing obligations produced by any W3C Working Group under the W3C Patent Policy.

Such licensing information should be sent to the W3C Staff.

Please recall that, per section 5 of the W3C Patent Policy, a W3C Royalty-Free license:

may not impose any further conditions or restrictions on the use of any technology, intellectual property rights, or other restrictions on behavior of the licensee, but may include reasonable, customary terms relating to operation or maintenance of the license relationship such as the following: choice of law and dispute resolution.