ISO/IEC 9973:2013

INTERNATIONAL ISO/IEC
STANDARD 9973
Third edition
2013-07-15
Information technology — Computer
graphics, image processing and
environmental data representation —
Procedures for registration of items
Technologies de l’information — Infographie, traitement de l’image
et représentation des données environnementales — Procédures pour
l’enregistrement des articles
Reference number
ISO/IEC 9973:2013(E)
©
ISO/IEC 2013

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ISO/IEC 9973:2013(E)

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Published in Switzerland
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ISO/IEC 9973:2013(E)

Contents Page
Foreword .iv
Introduction .v
1 Scope . 1
2 Normative references . 1
3 Terms and definitions . 1
4 Concepts . 2
4.1 Overview . 2
4.2 Registration authority . 3
4.3 Sponsoring authorities . 3
4.4 Items . 4
4.5 Sections . 4
4.6 Registration process . 4
4.7 Proposal guidelines and forms . 4
4.8 New or revised International Standards . 4
5 International Register of Items . 5
5.1 Availability of the International Register of Items . 5
5.2 Responsibilities of the registration authority . 5
5.3 Recipients of activity notices . 7
5.4 Addition of classes . 7
5.5 Addition of items . 7
5.6 Modification/clarification . 7
5.7 Conversion of registered items to standardized items . 8
5.8 Deprecation. 8
Annex A (normative) Information needed to submit proposals . 9
Annex B (informative) Example forms for proposals to register items .10
Annex C (informative) Language binding guidelines .24
Annex D (informative) Encoding guidelines .26
Bibliography .29
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ISO/IEC 9973:2013(E)

Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) and IEC (the International Electrotechnical
Commission) form the specialized system for worldwide standardization. National bodies that are
members of ISO or IEC participate in the development of International Standards through technical
committees established by the respective organization to deal with particular fields of technical
activity. ISO and IEC technical committees collaborate in fields of mutual interest. Other international
organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO and IEC, also take part in the
work. In the field of information technology, ISO and IEC have established a joint technical committee,
ISO/IEC JTC 1.
International Standards are drafted in accordance with the rules given in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2.
The main task of the joint technical committee is to prepare International Standards. Draft International
Standards adopted by the joint technical committee are circulated to national bodies for voting.
Publication as an International Standard requires approval by at least 75 % of the national bodies
casting a vote.
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of
patent rights. ISO and IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
ISO/IEC 9973 was prepared by Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology,
Subcommittee SC 24, Computer graphics, image processing and environmental data representation.
This third edition cancels and replaces the second edition (ISO/IEC 9973:2006), which has been
technically revised.
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ISO/IEC 9973:2013(E)

Introduction
This International Standard provides a set of procedures for managing the International Register
of Items. In this context, items are members of classes defined within the standards developed by
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 24 that may be registered. The set of procedures specified in this International
Standard is equally applicable to any standard that includes a provision for registering items in the
International Register of Items.
Standards that wish to use the International Register of Items may have certain classes of items in
common that are allowed to vary across implementations of those standards. There is a strong incentive
for implementations using the same registered items to reference them in the same way. Each such
standard has the potential to provide for registration of items of certain classes and expressly identifies
those classes of items that may be registered. When such a standard is published, those classes of items
identified for registration are automatically added to the International Register of Items.
The procedures in this International Standard are used in preparing, maintaining, and publishing the
International Register of Items. The register includes current classes of items from relevant International
Standards whose content can be extended through registration. The classes of items are listed within the
register and therefore maintained separately from this International Standard. The register also serves as
a means to inform all concerned of items already registered and of the specific identifiers assigned to them.
Registration provides identification for an item but should not be regarded as a standardization procedure.
Annex A identifies the information needed in submitting item proposals. Annex B contains example
proposal forms. Annex C contains language binding guidelines for submission of registration proposals.
Annex D contains encoding guidelines for submission of registration proposals.
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INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ISO/IEC 9973:2013(E)
Information technology — Computer graphics, image
processing and environmental data representation —
Procedures for registration of items
1 Scope
This International Standard specifies procedures to be followed in preparing, maintaining and
publishing the International Register of Items for any standard whose classes of items are applicable to
this register. The items that may be registered fall into several broad categories including:
— computer graphics concepts,
— data structures used by relevant standards,
— spatial and environmental concepts, and
— profiles of relevant standards.
2 Normative references
The following referenced documents are indispensable for the application of this document. For dated
references, only the edition cited applies. For undated references, the latest edition of the referenced
document (including any amendments) applies.
None.
3 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply.
3.1
approval body
organization that approves or rejects proposals
3.2
clarification
non-substantive change to a registered item
3.3
class
set of items with common properties or that are common in application to a relevant International Standard
3.4
deprecated item
items that have been approved for removal because they were found to be obsolete or in error
Note 1 to entry: Deprecated items are retained in the register, but marked as “deprecated”.
3.5
Generalized Drawing Primitive
GDP
primitive required for graphical item registration
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3.6
International Register of Items
the set of classes and their corresponding items that are covered by this International Standard
3.7
item
a member of a class covered by this International Standard
3.8
notification recipients
member bodies of relevant ISO and IEC committees and/or subcommittees, relevant Category A, B and
C liaisons, and relevant sponsoring authorities
3.9
register identifier
an identifier assigned by the registration authority that uniquely identifies an item within the scope of
a single class
3.10
registered item
an item approved for inclusion in the International Register of Items using the procedures specified in
this International Standard
3.11
registration
assignment of a permanent, unique and unambiguous identifier to an item with its related descriptive
information and placement in the International Register of Items
3.12
registration authority
organization to which management of a register has been designated by the ISO Technical
Management Board
3.13
section
a group of one or more related classes
3.14
sponsoring authority
organization that is authorized to submit registration proposals
3.15
standardized item
item specified by the International Standard that defines the class to which the item has been associated
4 Concepts
4.1 Overview
Standards that include registration provisions, as specified by this International Standard, are supported
by the International Register of Items. The International Register of Items provides the following features:
— a register of identifiers and meanings that may be shared between related standards,
— new instances of concepts in the related standards to be specified by registration, and
— a repository where both standardized and registered items may be browsed or searched.
This International Standard specifies procedures that manage the International Register of Items,
which is organized into sections. The International Register of Items is maintained by the registration
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ISO/IEC 9973:2013(E)

authority. Proposals related to the International Register of Items are submitted by sponsoring
authorities, processed by the registration authority and approved by the relevant approval body.
4.2 Registration authority
4.2.1 Appointment of a registration authority
The registration authority for this International Standard is established in accordance with ISO/IEC
Directives, Part 1, Annex H and is approved by the ISO Technical Management Board as part of a ten-
year agreement to maintain the International Register of Items. Contact information for registration
authorities of International Standards including this one are maintained and available at
http://www.iso.org/iso/standards_development/maintenance_agencies.htm.
4.2.2 Overview of registration authority responsibilities
The registration authority shall maintain the International Register of Items. Upon request, the
registration authority shall distribute information including a description of the International Register
of Items and how to submit proposals. Additional information on the responsibilities of the registration
authority is provided in Clause 5 and Figure 1.
4.3 Sponsoring authorities
4.3.1 Authorized sponsoring authorities
Proposals for changing the content of the register may be made by the following organizations that are
authorized to be sponsoring authorities for the purposes of this International Standard:
a) any ISO or IEC Technical Committee or Subcommittee;
b) any P-member or O-member of ISO/IEC JTC 1 or its subcommittees;
c) any international organization having Category A, B, or C liaison status with ISO/IEC JTC 1 or its
subcommittees.
4.3.2 Responsibilities of sponsoring authorities
The responsibilities of sponsoring authorities shall be as follows:
a) to receive proposals from within their respective countries or organizations;
b) to coordinate proposals within their respective countries or organizations, as necessary;
c) to ensure that all proposals are complete and conform to the requirements for the class of an item;
d) to ensure, if a language binding and/or encoding is required, at least one language binding and/or
data encoding shall be included;
e) to forward to the registration authority proposals that are ready to be submitted;
f) to respond to questions and coordinate changes derived from comments received from the
registration authority; and
g) to disseminate the decisions taken on proposals to their respective countries or organizations.
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ISO/IEC 9973:2013(E)

4.4 Items
The International Register of Items operates under the procedures of this International Standard and
allows for varied classes of items within the scope of this International Standard including:
— graphical items,
— data structures used by relevant standards,
— environmental data representation items, and
— profiles of standards.
The addition of a new item to the register increases the range of applicability of that standard, but does
not change the basic concepts of the standard.
4.5 Sections
A separate section is provided either for a set of classes that are related to a single International Standard
or for individual classes related to one or more International Standards. A section is populated by one or
more classes. The classes may be populated with standardized and/or registered items as specified by
the relevant International Standard(s).
4.6 Registration process
Proposals for the additions of new items to the register are submitted by a sponsoring authority (see 4.3). The
proposal is then evaluated by the Subcommittee Secretariat, the relevant Working Group or by a rapporteur
to ensure that its content conforms to the guidelines provided by the relevant International Standard.
The steps in the registration process are described in terms of the responsibilities of the registration
authority (see 5.2).
4.7 Proposal guidelines and forms
Annex A specifies general information necessary to submit a proposal to the registration authority.
Detailed information for a particular class may be obtained from the registration authority or from the
relevant International Standard that specifies that class.
Annex B contains example class and registration proposals formatted in forms with supporting text.
Annex C provides guidelines for submitting proposals for language bindings for registered items.
Annex D provides guidelines for submitting proposals for encodings of registered items.
4.8 New or revised International Standards
International Standards that allow registration as specified by this International Standard shall expressly
identify classes of items to be included in the register. Upon approval of the new or revised International
Standard, the Secretary shall receive from the editor of the relevant International Standard a list of the
new classes that are identified for inclusion in the register accompanied by the associated standardized
items approved for inclusion in the register. In addition, the editor shall provide a list of deprecated
items, if any. The Secretary shall then provide the lists to the registration authority. When a standard is
published, the contents of the lists provided to the registration authority shall be automatically added
to the register.
The registration authority shall also update the register to include relationships of existing classes to
additional standards or parts of standards that use the classes within the scope of this International
Standard, as necessary.
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ISO/IEC 9973:2013(E)

5 International Register of Items
5.1 Availability of the International Register of Items
The contents of the International Register of Items shall be available to the public under the terms and
conditions set forth by the registration authority. The contents of the register may also be obtained by
standards developers at no charge under the terms and conditions set forth by the registration authority.
5.2 Responsibilities of the registration authority
The responsibilities of the registration authority are specified below and depicted in Figure 1:
a) to receive proposals for registration of items or proposals for modification, clarification, or
deprecation of registered items from sponsoring authorities (see 4.3);
b) to perform an initial review to ensure consistent and correct proposal content. Criteria for not
further processing a proposal include:
1) incomplete or incomprehensible definition of item(s),
2) incorrect or incomplete language binding or data encoding (see Annex C and Annex D),
3) existence of an identical item in the register,
4) item class not in the register, and/or
5) inadequate justification;
c) to attempt to correct deficiencies in a proposal through communication with the sponsoring authority;
d) to assign a tracking identifier to each proposal;
e) to refer proposals to the appropriate approval body to ascertain whether each proposal should be
approved, approved with changes, or rejected. The approval body shall attempt to resolve objections
raised by negative votes when the proposal has received sufficient votes for approval.
f) to communicate with the sponsoring authority in order to mediate questions and/or concerns
raised during step e);
g) to assign a register identifier to each approved item and otherwise update the register to reflect
the results of the ballot. The register identifier shall be assigned as specified by the relevant
International Standard.
h) to announce to all notification recipients that the proposals have been approved or rejected;
i) to inform the appropriate sponsoring authority of the results when processing of a proposal has
been completed;
j) to include standardized items as directed by the International Standard that has created the
associated class(es);
k) to provide a means of distinguishing between standardized items and registered items;
l) to provide a means of distinguishing between deprecated and non-deprecated items;
m) to redesignate registered items as standardized items as determined by the relevant
International Standard;
n) to add new classes of items to the current list of classes; and
o) to provide copies of the register contents and/or associated documents (including a list of classes)
to the public on request.
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ISO/IEC 9973:2013(E)

Step 1
Proposal(5.2a)
Registration
Sponsoring
Public
Authority Authority
Step 7
Step 6
Provide copies of
Voting results (5.2i)
the register (5.2o)
Step 3
Coordination (5.2f)
Step 2 Step 6
Refer for vote (5.2e) Voting results (5.2h)
Member Bodies,
Approval Body
Liaison Organizations,
Step 4
Relevant Subcommittees
Voting results
Step 3
Step 5
Ballot vote (5.2e)
Update the register (5.2g)
International
Register of
Items
Figure 1 — Registration steps
Step 1: A sponsoring authority submits a proposal for the registration, modification, clarification, or
deprecation of item(s) to the registration authority after ensuring the proposal content is complete.
Step 2: After ensuring, in conjunction with the sponsoring authority, that the proposal has been correctly
and completely prepared, the registration authority forwards this proposal to the appropriate approval
body secretariat for member body vote.
Step 3: The appropriate approval body evaluates the proposal according to its procedures (including
coordination with the sponsoring authority to affect any changes) after which the approval body
secretary conducts a ballot vote.
Step 4: The appropriate approval body processes the results of the ballot and determines if the proposal
is approved or rejected, after which the results are reported to the registration authority.
Step 5: The register is updated as needed to reflect the results of the ballot.
Step 6: The registration authority announces the results of the votes to the appropriate member bodies,
sponsoring authority, and liaison organizations.
Step 7: Copies of the updated register are made available to the public according to the terms and
conditions defined by the registration authority.
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5.3 Recipients of activity notices
All relevant member bodies, liaisons organizations, and subcommittee(s) are notification recipients and
shall be provided notification of activity related to the identification of new classes and the initiation,
addition, modification, clarification, and deprecation of registered items.
5.4 Addition of classes
International Standards that wish to support registration of items within that standard shall define
requirements for registration and new classes of items that can be registered. From these descriptions,
the Secretary shall notify the registration authority of class and associated requirements. The registration
authority, upon receipt of notification is authorized to expand the list of classes. Such notification to the
Secretary and the registration authority shall be made at the time of publication of the International Standard.
Standards may optionally populate the classes with standardized items. Such standardized items (if
any) shall be added to the register at the same time as the new classes are added.
5.5 Addition of items
Items may be added to the International Register of Items when proposals for items are approved, or
when a new or revised edition of an International Standard is published that includes new items. Each
such item shall be placed in the register in the appropriate class, assigned a registration identifier (if
not already assigned), and its status marked as either “registered” or “standardized” depending on the
source of the item. New items shall not be approved if the corresponding class does not already exist in
the International Register of Items. New classes may be added as specified in 5.4.
5.6 Modification/clarification
5.6.1 Modification of registered items
Once a proposal for registration of a particular item has been approved by ballot and the item has
been registered, no proposals for modification of that item shall be considered unless provisions for
modifications are provided in the relevant International Standard that specifies the class of that item.
A modification shall not change the semantic of the registered item, even when such a modification is
within the provisions of the relevant International Standard. Otherwise, a modification shall be treated
as an addition (see 5.5), which also may or may not require the deprecation of the original item, as
specified in 5.8.
Proposals for modification of a registered item to support additional language bindings and/or encodings
may be submitted for inclusion. These proposals are handled the same way as proposals for new items
to be registered. Additional features of a language binding or encoding shall be added to the existing
registered items without change to the existing information.
5.6.2 Clarification of registered items
Sponsoring authorities may submit requests for clarifications of registered items. A clarification shall
not cause any change to a registered item. Otherwise it shall be treated as a new item or may be treated
as a modification as specified in 5.6.1. Approved technical clarifications shall be promulgated by the
registration authority, and shall be treated as additional information attached to a registered item as a
note. The registration authority, at its discretion, may directly apply approved editorial clarifications.
5.6.3 Modification/clarification of standardized items
Standardized items may only be modified or clarified by amending or revising the relevant International
Standard unless provisions for modifications and/or clarifications are provided in the International
Standard that specifies the class of that item.
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5.7 Conversion of registered items to standardized items
Registered items may be converted to standardized items if the relevant International Standard, during
amendment or revision, elects to incorporate some or all of the registered items. In this case, the
registered items in the register are remarked and treated as standardized items. This applies to both
non-deprecated and deprecated registered items.
5.8 Deprecation
5.8.1 Deprecation of registered items
No registered items shall be deleted from the International Register of Items. Rather, they shall be
retained and marked as deprecated. Proposals for deprecation and comments concerning a proposed
deprecation shall be directed to the registration authority for consideration. The responsibilities of the
registration authority with regard to deprecation of registered items shall be to:
a) receive proposals for deprecation from sponsoring authorities (see 4.3);
b) inform the sponsoring authority that originally submitted the item for registration that the item is
now the subject of a proposed deprecation;
c) forward proposals for deprecation to the Secretariat of the associated subcommittee for a member
body vote within the subcommittee to ascertain whether each proposal f
...