Pattern Definitions and Semantically Annotated Instances

Ontology design patterns are normally instantiated by replicating and adapting the pattern concepts and roles. The relation between pattern definitions and their instantiations is documented in natural language. The use of parametric ontologies or pattern-reuse modifications to OWL-DL has been suggested before, but so far only practical aspects have been analysed, leaving the formal semantics of these extensions as future work. In this work we present formal definitions for ontology pattern and pattern instantiations, together with the semantics of instantiation. We propose the use of semantic annotations to describe and generate OWL pattern instantiations, without the need for explicit ontology replication, and provide tools to support this process.