WO2009041757A1

WO2009041757A1 - Electronic document management system having integrated structure

Info

Publication number: WO2009041757A1
Application number: PCT/KR2008/001726
Authority: WO
Inventors: Song Ho Kim; Jae Hun Yoo
Original assignee: Starbank Co., Ltd.
Priority date: 2007-09-27
Filing date: 2008-03-27
Publication date: 2009-04-02
Also published as: KR101018001B1; KR20090032271A

Abstract

An electronic document management system for integrally storing and managing documents or information online is disclosed. A plurality of business servers and individual terminals store the documents or information in respective depositories which are individually managed by the respective business servers and individual terminals. A client-integrated electronic mailbox collects and manages the documents or information, managed in the depositories, based on an authorized procedure. A certified electronic document depository secures legal originality of the documents or information based on authentication for the documents or information. The certified electronic document depository retains the documents or information while including an official certificate for the collected documents or information and digital signature information for the official certificate therein. The certified electronic document depository is operated over a network integrated with that of the client-integrated electronic mailbox.

Description

ELECTRONIC DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM HAVING INTEGRATED

STRUCTURE

Technical Field

The present invention generally relates to an electronic document management system, and, in particular, to an electronic document management system having an integrated structure which secures the legal originality of documents using a certified electronic document depository, and integrally manages documents and other types of information using an integrated electronic mailbox, thereby being able to permanently manage the viewing, transmission, and certification of data.

Background Art

Generally, with the high development of the information society, the utilization of electronic documents, which can be easily handled and can be created and retained at low costs, has been increased. Accordingly, the establishment and operation of a certified electronic document depository have been demanded so as to retain electronic documents, to transmit/receive and relay the electronic documents, and to provide evidence to demonstrate the validity of the electronic documents .

In the case of the U.S., an electronic document deposit certificate, called "Secure Seal", which certifies the facts that an electronic document has existed since a predetermined time point and that it has not been modified thereafter, has been introduced by Surety, LLC and used, and electronic document deposit certification for securing the originality of an electronic document has been treated as part of a Digital Notary Service (DNS) . According to Surety, LLC, when the demand for certifying the facts that an electronic document has been deposited and has not been modified is converted into money, the money amounts to 4 to 5 billion dollars in 2003 in the U.S. Further, it is expected that the demand will rapidly expand as the types of business of enterprises are changed into online and networked ones .

Further, Ricoh Co., Ltd. has used, as a safe for retaining electronic documents, a server system for preserving and managing original electronic documents, which is a system for certifying the fact that a specific document has not been modified by a user to a third party. The main functions of the system are to retain or receive original documents, to record logs for all accesses, thereby controlling illegal accesses and detecting and handling modification, to automatically upgrade the version of a document when the document is updated, without overwriting it, and to prevent a document from being deleted within a predetermined period if the retention period of the document has been set.

Fizer Technologies, LLC has introduced an electronic document certification service for the research and development department thereof in order to preserve research and development records based on the First-to-invent System, which characterizes the U.S. patent system. The electronic document certification service is a management solution developed to be suitable for the paperless environment, that is, the digital environment. Whenever a person in charge of development completes a task, the certification of integrity and time for completed digital data is automatically given.

The digitization of documents is possible only when the security of all of the creation, distribution, retention, and disposal of documents, which constitute the lifecycle of documents, is secured. In the case of current electronic documents, the security of creation and distribution can be secured using digital signatures. However, for the retention of the electronic documents, the system for preventing the forgery, counterfeit, and removal of electronic documents is unsatisfactory.

Furthermore, there are problems in that the retention of electronic documents is handled by an individual or an operator who is not authenticated, so that a conventional retention method has various types of security weaknesses, and in that electronic documents, including contract information about legal rights, are difficult to be reliable due to the denial of transmission and reception, the denial of content, the denial of a possessor, the forgery of content, and the counterfeit of content, so that they cannot have legal force. Disclosure of the Invention

Accordingly, the present invention has been made keeping in mind the above problems occurring in the prior art, and an object of the present invention is to provide an electronic document management system having an integrated structure which can stably manage the distributed documents of clients based on digitization through securing of the legal originality of the documents .

Another object of the present invention is to provide an electronic document management system having an integrated structure which integrally manages documents and other types of information through a general-purpose-integrated electronic mailbox in a single place, thereby enabling the viewing of data in real time through the Internet, a mobile terminal, a Wireless Broadband (WiBro) terminal, a Portable Multimedia Player (PMP) , and a Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) terminal without temporal limitation, and enabling the permanent management of the transmission and certification of documents . A further another object of the present invention is to provide an electronic document management system having an integrated structure which can perform the legal and individual management of important documents until the documents are disposed of based on complete security through a certified electronic document depository, which can integrally and permanently manage the documents from the creation to the disposal thereof, and which can provide post certification service by managing evidence when a dispute occurs after the disposal of documents .

A still another object of the present invention is to provide an electronic document management system having an integrated structure which registers and manages important documents, the originality of which is necessary to be legally secured, at a certified electronic document depository, thereby enabling them to be searched for and viewed in various forms, such as by the search period, format and type of document, and the type of business and user.

In order to accomplish the above objects, the present invention provides an electronic document management system for integrally storing and managing documents or information online, including a plurality of business servers and individual terminals for storing the documents or information in respective depositories which are individually managed by the respective business servers and individual terminals; a client-integrated electronic mailbox for collecting and managing the documents or information, managed in the depositories, based on an authorized procedure; and a certified electronic document depository for securing legal originality of the documents or information based on authentication for the documents or information. In detail, the certified electronic document depository retains the corresponding documents or information while including an official certificate for the collected documents or information and digital signature information for the official certificate therein.

The electronic document management system having an integrated structure according to the present invention secures the legal originality of documents through the interwork with a digitization system for managing documents and a certified electronic document depository, and integrally and permanently manages documents from the creation to the disposal thereof, so that it has an advantage of providing effective document deposition and secure operation.

Brief Description of the Drawings

The above and other objects, features and other advantages of the present invention will be more clearly understood from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the main functions of a client-integrated electronic mailbox according to the present invention; and

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing electronic document management functions according to the present invention.

Best Mode for Carrying Out the Invention

Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the attached drawings below. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the service concept of an electronic document management system having an integrated structure according to the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, a plurality of businesses 101 stores documents and information in the respective depositories thereof. The documents and information, managed in the respective depositories, are provided to a client-integrated electronic mailbox 103. Further, a plurality of pieces of information, provided over the Internet as well as from a plurality of individuals, is managed through the client-integrated electronic mailbox 103.

In order to certify the originality of collected information, the client-integrated electronic mailbox 103 works in conjunction with a certified electronic document depository 105. The certified electronic document depository 105 stores the documents or information while including an official certificate for the collected information and digital signature information for the official certificate. Here, it is apparent that the certified electronic document depository 105 can be operated over a network integrated with that of the client-integrated electronic mailbox 103.

Therefore, the client-integrated electronic mailbox 103 provides a User Interface (UI) 107 online, so that each of clients, that is, an individual or a business, can perform management, such as search, viewing, transmission, certification, and disposal, for distributed documents, by logging in one time. The above-described management of documents is performed in such a way that only authorized clients, who have logged in, can view, transmit, and certify documents through the Internet, a mobile terminal, a PMP, and a DMB terminal without temporal limitation. Here, the authorized clients include personal and business clients, and correspond to clients who have made access based on authentication means coupled with an official certificate, mobile terminals, One-Time Passwords (OTPs) , and biometrics. Further, according to such authentication procedure, the client-integrated electronic mailbox 103 realizes a data interface based on assurance of legal originality, and includes data, such as contract documents, claims, notices, certificates, certificates of inscription, wills, recorded data, moving pictures, and photographs. Meanwhile, the client-integrated electronic mailbox 103 according to the present invention includes a UI 107. The UI 107 works in conjunction with a plurality of terminals 101 of businesses and individuals while linking the certified electronic document depository 105. Therefore, when a user attempts to directly store or inquire about documents using his or her own system, the stability of document storage is secured by linking the UI 107 with the certified electronic document depository 105.

For this purpose, the client-integrated electronic mailbox 103 requires a link interface between the terminals 101 of businesses and individuals, and uses a predetermined communication protocol to prevent invasion from the outside when documents are transmitted or received online. The message structure of the communication protocol is a communication system for a link between the certified electronic document depository 105 and an external system, that is, the terminals 101 of businesses. In the present invention, a link interface using a Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) is suggested.

The SOAP is a defined protocol in which a message structure is applied to communication. In the message structure complied with the protocol, essential elements within request and response messages for each service are layered, thereby allowing additional elements to be extended.

A message structure for transmitting documents to the client-integrated electronic mailbox 103 will be described below. The message structure includes a request message and a response message. First, the request message structure includes a message header and a message body. The message header includes fields for indicating general information for the request message, such as a task type, the determination of request/response, a message identifier, and a timestamp. The structure of the message header is the same as that of the response message.

The message body includes a request header storing information about the number of process requests, and a request body storing the actual content of the requests. The request body includes a request data list having a structure to which request data can be repeatedly added so that a plurality of pieces of data can be processed for the same task. The structure of the request data can be redefined using a name and a structure based on the type of each service in the structure of the request message for each link type. Meanwhile, the response message includes a message header and a message body, like the request message. The structure of the message header is the same as that of the request message. The message body includes response header storing information about the result of overall process, the number of overall processes, the number of success processes, and the number of failure processes, and a response body storing the content of an actual response.

The response body includes a response result, which is replaced with a response data list or a failure reason based on the value of a total result code, which is the result of the overall process. Here, when the result of a process for the number of a plurality of requests is partial success, whether to handle the result of the overall process as success or failure is determined based on the policy of the depository. If the result of the overall process is found to be success, the structure of the response data list is configured to include a plurality of pieces of response data so that responses for the plurality of requests are possible, like the request message. The structure of each piece of response data is redefined using a name and a structure based on the type of each service in the response message structure for each link type. If the result of the overall process is found to be failure, a failure reason, which is a reason for the failure, replaces the response result.

As described above, a document management request, such as the retention or update of documents, from the business 101 is performed through a link with the certified electronic document depository 105, and the subject of the link is based on the user interface, that is, the UI 107 of the client- integrated electronic mailbox 103.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing electronic document management functions provided by the client-integrated electronic mailbox 103 based on the UI. As shown in FIG. 2, the client-integrated electronic mailbox 103 has functions such as the registration of documents from clients, the issue of documents, the issue of documents by the third party, the issue of documents using certificates, the transfer of documents, the disposal of documents, the extension of the retention period of documents, the issue of certificates, the update and issue of certificates, the verification of certificates, the downloading of certificates, and the search for certificates.

First, the document registration function is an electronic document registering service used when a client registers electronic documents for the certified electronic document depository 105. The document issuing function is used to define request and response messages for the electronic document issuing service, used when electronic documents stored in the certified electronic document depository 105 are received. A client requests that the electronic documents stored in the depository be issued so as to view or utilize the electronic documents for some other purpose. Therefore, the certified electronic document depository 105 issues the electronic documents in the form of Document Interchange Protocol (DIP) in response to the request .

The document issuance (DeliverDocument) function by a third party is a service used when it is requested that electronic documents stored in the certified electronic document depository 105 be issued to a third party. The document issuing service by a third party allows a client to make a request for the issue of electronic documents stored in the certified electronic document depository 105 to a third party. The certified electronic document depository 105 determines whether the electronic documents can be issued in response to the request, and then provides a response message indicating the results of the determination.

The task of transmitting electronic documents to the receiver of the electronic documents is asynchronousIy performed with respect to a request task or a response task, and the receiver of the electronic documents may be a person who requested the electronic documents other than the third party. When the electronic document issuing task by a third party has been completed but the task failed, the certified electronic document depository 105 transmits the results of the task or an error message to the e-mail address of the client .

The above-described document issuance

(GetDocumentByCert) service using a certificate is a service used when an electronic document is received using a registered certificate for a client who is set as a nominee in the registered certificate. The client proves that he/she is a legal nominee for the corresponding electronic document using the certificate and his/her own certificate.

Meanwhile, the document transfer (TransferDocument) service of the client-integrated electronic mailbox 103 is used when it is requested that an electronic document stored in the certified electronic document depository 105 be transferred to another depository. A client can request that the electronic document stored in the certified electronic document depository 105 be transferred to another depository, and the certified electronic document depository 105 determines whether the corresponding electronic document can be transferred to another depository in response to the request, and then provides a response message for the results of the determination.

The task of transferring an electronic document to another depository is asynchronousIy performed with respect to the request task or the response task. When the task of transferring the electronic document to the other depository is completed but the task failed, the certified electronic document depository 105 transmits the results of the task or an error message to the e-mail address of the client. A document disposal (DeleteDocument) service will be described below. The document disposal service is used when it is requested that an electronic document stored in the certified electronic document depository 105 be disposed of. A client requests that an electronic document stored in the certified electronic document depository 105 be disposed of before a retention expiration date for the electronic document . After the certified electronic document depository 105 disposes of the corresponding electronic document in response to the request, the certified electronic document depository 105 creates a DIP including an original electronic document and transmits it to the terminal of the corresponding client when the client makes a request. Of course, in the case in which the certified electronic document depository 105 issues the original electronic document after disposing of the electronic document, the certified electronic document depository 105 creates the DIP first, and then disposes of the electronic document .

The document retention extension (ExtendRetention) service is used when the retention period of the electronic document, stored in the certified electronic document depository 105, is expired, and thus it is requested that the retention period be extended. The client-integrated electronic mailbox 103 transmits/receives request/response messages for the electronic document transfer service to/from the certified electronic document depository 105 based on a predetermined protocol. That is, the UI 107 transfers the client's document-retention-extension-intention for such service function to the certified electronic document depository 105, and receives a response for this, thereby transferring the results of extension for the document retention to the corresponding client .

Further, the certificate issuance (IssueCert) service is a function of issuing all certificates which certify the fact that the certified electronic document depository 105 performed the electronic document registration service, the electronic document issuance service, the electronic document transfer service, and the electronic document disposal service. Of course, the corresponding service is performed depending on the request of the client. For this purpose, the client requests that the certified electronic document depository 105 issue the certificates about the respective services performed by the certified electronic document depository 105, and the certified electronic document depository 105 issues the certificates in response to the request . The issued certificates are provided to the terminal of the client through the client-integrated electronic mailbox 103.

The certificate update and issuance (UpdateCert) service is used when the availability of a certificate cannot be secured any longer because the term of guarantee for the official certificate of the depository that signed the issued certificate is about to expire or has already expired, even if the issued certificate has not expired. For such a service, the client can request that the depository update the corresponding certificate, and the certified electronic document depository 105 updates and issues a certificate using the updated official certificate of the depository. The content of the updated certificate is the same as that of the certificate that has not been updated. However, the certified electronic document depository 105 issues the certificate having the new signature by replacing the signature information of the previous certificate with the new signature created using the updated certificate of the depository. Thereafter, the certificate is provided to the terminal of the client through the client-integrated electronic mailbox 103.

Further, the certificate verification (VerifyCert) service is a service used when the client requests that the certified electronic document depository 105 verify whether a certificate has been disposed of . The certified electronic document depository 105 verifies whether the verification target certificate has been disposed of, and then transmits the results of the verification to the terminal of the client through the UI 107 of the client-integrated electronic mailbox 103.

The certificate download (GetCert) service is a service used when a user requests that the certified electronic document depository 105 transfer a certificate that has been previously issued by the certified electronic document depository 105. That is, when the client loses a certificate, the term of validity of which has not expired, or needs to download a previously issued certificate for some other reason, the client can request the previously issued certificate from the certified electronic document depository, and the certified electronic document depository 105 searches for the corresponding certificate and transmits it to the terminal of the client .

The search (Search) service is used when the client searches the certified electronic document depository 105 for an electronic document, trace data, and a certificate. The client makes a request for the corresponding service. Before the client requests the electronic document issuance service, the electronic document transfer service, the electronic document disposal service, the certificate issuance service, and the certificate download service, the client must search for the identifier of a target electronic document, the identifier of target trace data, and the identifier of a target certificate. Furthermore, when a user needs to make a request for the search and inquiry services for other data within the depository, the search and request service can be used.

Industrial Applicability

The above-describe electronic document management system having an integrated structure provides a client-integrated electronic mailbox using a UI online, with the result that not only can the originality of documents be secured, the retention, search, and viewing of documents are also realized almost permanently, so that the exchange of information is stabilized and the basic infrastructure of electronic document management is realized, thereby preparing an opportunity for sufficiently increasing the efficiency of industrial use.

Claims

1. An electronic document management system for integrally storing and managing documents or information online, comprising: a plurality of business servers and individual terminals for storing the documents or information in relevant depositories which are individually managed by the business servers and individual terminals; a client-integrated electronic mailbox for collecting and managing the documents or information, managed in the depositories, based on an authorized procedure; and a certified electronic document depository for securing legal originality of the documents or information based on authentication for the documents or information.

2. The electronic document management system according to claim 1, wherein the certified electronic document depository retains the corresponding documents or information while including an official certificate for the collected documents or information and digital signature information for the official certificate therein.

3. The electronic document management system according to claim 1, wherein the certified electronic document depository is operated over a network integrated with that of the client- integrated electronic mailbox.

4. The electronic document management system according to any of claims 1 to 3, wherein the client-integrated electronic mailbox provides a User Interface (UI) online, thereby managing distributed documents through the business servers and individual terminals .

5. The electronic document management system according to claim 4, wherein the management of the documents is performed in such a way that only authorized clients manage the documents using any communication means of an Internet, a mobile terminal, a Portable Multimedia Player (PMP) , and a Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) terminal without temporal limitation.

6. The electronic document management system according to any of claims 1, 2, 3, and 5, wherein the management of the documents is one or more services selected from among registration of documents from clients, issuance of documents, issuance of documents by a third party, issuance of documents using certificates, transfer of documents, disposal of documents, extension of retention period of documents, issuance of certificates, update and issuance of certificates, verification of certificates, download of certificates, and search for documents .