Expressing variability for design patterns re-use

A design pattern description is much more complex than a semi-formal solution, often restricted to a class diagram. Applying a pattern mainly depends on the solution specification but a lot of useful information can be found into other items. Neglecting variants of the main solution the pattern engineer might explain can be detrimental to the pattern itself because, most of the time, they affect the solution specification. We propose that the pattern engineer represents his solution as a variable minisystem led by a use case view expressing variants. This functional model fragment is the starting point of our imitation process, where application designer will select variants to imitate.