ISO/IEC 19988:2024

International
Standard
ISO/IEC 19988
Third edition
Information technology — GS1 Core
2024-03
Business Vocabulary (CBV)
Technologies de l'information — Vocabulaire normatif relatif aux
activités de base GS1
Reference number
© ISO/IEC 2024
All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified, or required in the context of its implementation, no part of this publication may
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© ISO/IEC 2024 – All rights reserved
ii
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.
The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance
are described in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular, the different approval criteria
needed for the different types of document should be noted (see www.iso.org/directives or
www.iec.ch/members_experts/refdocs).
ISO and IEC draw attention to the possibility that the implementation of this document may
involve the use of (a) patent(s). ISO and IEC take no position concerning the evidence, validity
or applicability of any claimed patent rights in respect thereof. As of the date of publication of
this document, ISO and IEC had not received notice of (a) patent(s) which may be required to
implement this document. However, implementers are cautioned that this may not represent
the latest information, which may be obtained from the patent database available at
www.iso.org/patents and https://patents.iec.ch. ISO and IEC shall not be held responsible for
identifying any or all such patent rights.
Any trade name used in this document is information given for the convenience of users and
does not constitute an endorsement.
For an explanation of the voluntary nature of standards, the meaning of ISO specific terms and
expressions related to conformity assessment, as well as information about ISO's adherence to
the World Trade Organization (WTO) principles in the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT),
see www.iso.org/iso/foreword.html. In the IEC, see www.iec.ch/understanding-standards.
This document was prepared by GS1 [as the Core Business Vocabulary (CBV) Standard, Release
2.0] and drafted in accordance with its editorial rules. It was adopted, under the JTC 1 PAS
procedure, by Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology.
This third edition cancels and replaces the second edition (ISO/IEC 19988:2017), which has
been technically revised.
The main changes are as follows:
— support for GS1 Web Vocabulary, URI semantic equivalence by means of owl:sameAs
relationships;
— new "How" event dimension;
— overview of EPCIS event "dimensions" with cross-references to relevant sections in EPCIS
(ISO/IEC 19987) and CBV (this document);
— new Persistent Disposition indicating non-transient business state of an object;
— use of new prefix 952 in all examples;
— new business step values: sampling, sensor_reporting;
— clarified definitions of business step values: commissioning, encoding, inspecting,
removing;
© ISO/IEC 2024 – All rights reserved
iii
— addition of new disposition values: available, completeness_verified,
completeness_inferred, conformant, container_open, mismatch_instance, mismatch_class,
mismatch_quantity, needs replacement, non_conformant, unavailable;
— clarified definition and example of disposition value in_progress, recommending omission;
— deprecated disposition value: no_pedigree_match;
— new business transaction types cert, testprd, testres, upevt;
— clarified definition of business transaction type poc to make it clear that Purchase Order
Confirmation is also used to represent Sales Order;
— sensor measurement types now supported;
— clarification of HTTPS URLs as a recommended approach alongside HTTP URLs;
— introduced support for constrained set of GS1 Digital Link URIs supported alongside
generic HTTP URLs for identification of object instance, class, location, business
transaction, source/destination, and transformation;
— clarification preference for PGLN to identify owning and possessing parties;
— introduction of Hash URI as business transaction identifier;
— introduction of EPCIS Event Hash ID as an event Identifier;
— introduction of chemical substance identifiers;
— introduction of microorganism identifiers;
— restriction of date types to specific subset of W3C primitive datatypes;
— extended support for QNames to express master data attributes;
— incorporation of additions published previously as CBVCNs 17-339 (Tax ID), 18-108 (Fish
Attributes);
— inclusion of certification attributes in Certification List;
— additionalTradeItemId now as additionalTradeItemIDList;
— deprecation of latitude and longitude from location/party master data;
— addition of geoLocation and geoFence to location/party master data;
— addition of AdditionalPartyIDList;
— example event data moved to machine-readable artefacts;
— introduction of https://ref.gs1.org/cbv namespace, to underpin CBV 2.0 support for
Linked Data.
Any feedback or questions on this document should be directed to the user’s national standards
body. A complete listing of these bodies can be found at www.iso.org/members.html and
www.iec.ch/national-committees.
© ISO/IEC 2024 – All rights reserved
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Core Business Vocabulary (CBV) Standard
Table of Contents
1 Introduction – Core Business Vocabulary . 1
2 Relationship to the GS1 System Architecture . 2
3 Relationship to EPCIS . 2
3.1 EPCIS event structure . 2
3.2 Overview of EPCIS event "dimensions" (non-normative) . 4
3.3 Vocabulary kinds . 6
3.3.1 Standard Vocabulary . 7
3.3.2 User Vocabulary . 7
4 Terminology and typographical conventions . 8
5 Compliance and compatibility . 8
5.1 CBV-Compliant . 9
5.2 CBV-Compatible .1 1
6 Use of Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) . 12
6.1 URI prefix for Standard Vocabularies in the CBV . 12
6.2 Limitation on Use of the epcglobal URN prefix . 12
6.2.1 Example of limitation of use of epcglobal URN prefix (non-normative) . 12
7 Standard Vocabularies . 13
7.1 Business steps .1 3
7.1.1 URI structure .1 3
7.1.2 Compliant usage . 13
7.1.3 Business step values and definitions . 14
7.2 Dispositions .2 0
7.2.1 URI structure .2 0
7.2.2 Compliant usage . 21
7.2.3 Disposition values and definitions . 21
7.3 Business Transaction Types . 27
7.3.1 URI structure .2 7
7.3.2 Compliant usage . 27
7.3.3 Business Transaction values and definitions . 27
7.4 Source/Destination types . 28
7.4.1 URI structure .2 8
7.4.2 Compliant usage . 29
7.4.3 Source/Destination Type values and definitions . 29
7.5 Error reason identifiers . 29
7.5.1 URI structure .2 9
7.5.2 Compliant usage . 30
7.5.3 Error reason identifier values and definitions . 30
7.6 Sensor measurement types . 30
7.6.1 URI structure .3 0
7.6.2 Compliant usage . 31
7.6.3 Sensor measurement type values and definitions . 31
7.7 Sensor alert types .3 5
7.7.1 URI structure .3 5
7.7.2 Compliant usage . 35
7.7.3 Sensor alert type values and definitions . 35
© ISO/IEC 2024 – All rights reserved
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Core Business Vocabulary (CBV) Standard
7.8 Sensor report component type . 36
7.8.1 URI structure .3 6
7.8.2 Compliant usage . 36
7.8.3 Sensor report component types and definitions . 36
8 User vocabularies . 38
8.1 General considerations and syntax forms . 38
8.1.1 EPC URI .3 9
8.1.2 GS1 Digital Link URI . 39
8.1.3 Private or Industry-wide URN . 39
8.1.4 HTTP or HTTPS URL . 40
8.2 Physical or digital objects (Instance-Level Identification) . 41
8.2.1 EPC URI for Instance-level identification of objects . 42
8.2.2 GS1 Digital Link URIs for Instance-level identification of objects . 42
8.2.3 Private or Industry-wide URN for Instance-level identification of objects . 43
8.2.4 HTTP or HTTPS URLs for Instance-level identification of objects . 44
8.3 Physical or digital objects (Class-level identification) . 45
8.3.1 EPC URI for Class-level identification of objects . 45
8.3.2 GS1 Digital Link URIs for Class-level identification of objects . 46
8.3.3 Private or Industry-wide URN for Class-level identification of objects . 47
8.3.4 HTTP or HTTPS URLs for Class-level identification of objects . 47
8.4 Locations .4 8
8.4.1 EPC URI for Location identification. 49
8.4.2 GS1 Digital Link URIs for Location identification . 49
8.4.3 Private or Industry-wide URN for Location identification . 49
8.4.4 HTTP or HTTPS URLs for Location identification . 50
8.4.5 Geographic Location URIs for Location identifiers . 50
8.5 Business transactions .5 1
8.5.1 EPC URI for Business transaction identifiers . 51
8.5.2 GS1 Digital Link URIs for business transaction identification . 52
8.5.3 GLN-based identifier for legacy system business transaction identifiers . 52
8.5.4 Private or Industry-wide URN for business transaction identifiers . 52
8.5.5 HTTP or HTTPS URLs for business transaction identifiers . 53
8.6 Hash URI for business transaction identifiers . 54
8.7 Source/Destination identifiers . 55
8.7.1 EPC URI for Source/Destination identifiers . 55
8.7.2 GS1 Digital Link URIs for Source/Destination identification . 55
8.7.3 Private or Industry-wide URN for Source/Destination identifiers . 56
8.7.4 HTTP or HTTPS URLs for Source/Destination identification . 56
8.8 Transformation identifiers . 57
8.8.1 EPC URI for Transformation identifiers . 57
8.8.2 GS1 Digital Link URIs for Transformation identification . 57
8.8.3 GLN-based Identifier for Legacy System Transformation identifiers . 57
8.8.4 Private or Industry-wide URN for Transformation identifiers . 58
8.8.5 HTTP or HTTPS URLs for Transformation identification . 58
8.9 Event identifiers .5 9
8.9.1 Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) URIs for Event identification . 60
8.9.2 EPCIS Event Hash ID . 60
8.10 Chemical substance identifiers . 63
8.10.1 InChI (International Chemical Identifier) Key URI . 64
© ISO/IEC 2024 – All rights reserved
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Core Business Vocabulary (CBV) Standard
8.11 Microorganism identifiers . 64
8.11.1 NCBI Web URI .6 4
9 Master data . 65
9.1 Data type restrictions .6 5
9.1.1 Dates .6 5
9.1.2 Master data attribute names . 65
9.1.3 Certification attributes . 66
9.2 Trade item master data . 68
9.2.1 Trade item master data attributes . 69
9.2.2 Trade item master data attributes – trade item level . 69
9.2.3 Trade item master data attributes – lot level . 72
9.2.4 Trade item master data attributes – instance-level . 75
9.2.5 Values of type measurement . 76
9.3 Location and party master data . 76
9.3.1 Location and party master data attributes . 77
9.3.2 Location master data code list values . 82
10 List of abbreviations (non-normative) . 84
11 References . 87

© ISO/IEC 2024 – All rights reserved
vii
Core Business Vocabulary (CBV) Standard
Index of figures
Figure 7-1 Coordinate reference systems . 38
Figure 8-1 EPCIS Event HashID example . 63
Figure 9-1 geoFence example . 80

© ISO/IEC 2024 – All rights reserved
viii
Core Business Vocabulary (CBV) Standard
1 Introduction – Core Business Vocabulary
This GS1 standard defines the Core Business Vocabulary (CBV). The goal of this
standard is to specify various vocabulary elements and their values for use in
conjunction with the EPCIS standard [EPCIS2.0], which defines mechanisms to
exchange information both within and across organisation boundaries. EPCIS and the
CBV are developed, maintained and published by GS1; EPCIS and the CBV are also
published within ISO's PAS process as ISO/IEC 19987 and ISO/IEC 19988,
respectively. The vocabulary identifiers and definitions in this standard will ensure
that all parties who exchange EPCIS data using the CBV will have a common
understanding of the semantic meaning of that data.
This standard is intended to provide a basic capability that meets the above goal. In
particular, this standard is designed to define vocabularies that are core to the EPCIS
abstract data model and are applicable to a broad set of business scenarios common to
many industries that have a desire or requirement to share data. This standard intends
to provide a useful set of values and definitions that can be consistently understood by
each party in the supply chain.
Additional end user requirements may be addressed by augmenting the vocabulary
elements herein with additional vocabulary elements defined for a particular industry
or a set of users or a single user. Additional values for the standard vocabulary types
defined in this standard may be included in follow-on versions of this standard.
This standard includes identifier syntax and specific vocabulary element values with
their definitions for these Standard Vocabularies:
■ Business step identifiers
■ Disposition identifiers
■ Business transaction types
■ Source/Destination types
■ Error reason identifiers
■ Sensor measurement types
■ Sensor alert types
This standard provides identifier syntax options for these User Vocabularies:
■ Objects
■ Locations
■ Business transactions
■ Source/Destination identifiers
■ Transformation identifiers
■ Event identifiers
■ Chemical substance identifiers
■ Microorganism identifiers
This standard provides Master Data Attributes and Values for describing Physical
Locations including:
■ Site Location
■ Sub-Site Type
■ Sub-Site Attributes
■ Sub-Site Detail
Additional detailed master data regarding locations (addresses, etc.) are not defined in
this standard.
© ISO/IEC 2024 – All rights reserved
Core Business Vocabulary (CBV) Standard
2 Relationship to the GS1 System Architecture
The CBV is a companion standard to the EPCIS standard. EPCIS is the standard that
defines the technical interfaces for capturing and sharing event data. EPCIS defines a
framework data model for event data. The CBV is a GS1 data standard that
supplements that framework by defining specific data values that may populate the
EPCIS data model. As such, the CBV exists in the “Share” group of GS1 standards.
3 Relationship to EPCIS
This section specifies how the CBV standard relates to the EPCIS standard.
3.1 EPCIS event structure
The EPCIS 2.0 standard [EPCIS2.0] specifies the data elements in an EPCIS event. The
following lists these data elements, and indicates where the CBV provides identifiers
that may be used as values for those data elements.
■ The “what” dimension contains (for most event types) one or more unique
identifiers for physical or digital objects or classes of physical or digital objects.
Identifiers for physical or digital objects are specified in section 8.2 and 8.3. In the
case of an EPCIS TransformationEvent, an optional TransformationID may be
used to link together multiple events that describe the same transformation.
TransformationIDs are included in section 8.8.
■ The “when” dimension reflects the moment in time at which an EPCIS event
occurred. Event time is fully specified in the EPCIS standard.
■ The “where” dimension consists of two identifiers that describe different aspects
of where an event occurred:
□ Read Point (readPoint): The location where the EPCIS event took place. In
the case of an EPCIS event arising from reading a barcode or RFID tag, the
Read Point is often the location where the barcode or RFID tag was read.
Identifiers for read points are specified in section 8.3.
Example: A reader is placed at dock door #3 at the London Distribution Centre
(DC). Product passed through the dock door. Read point = stands for London DC Dock Door #3>
□ Business Location (bizLocation): The location where the subject of the
event is assumed to be following an EPCIS event, until a new event takes place
that indicates otherwise. Identifiers for business locations are specified in
section 8.3.
Example: A product is read through the sales floor transition door at store
#123. The product is now sitting on the sales floor. Business location = identifier that stands for store #123 Sales Floor>
■ The “why” dimension provides business process information associated with the
event, including the business process step that "triggered" the event's capture:
□ Business Step (bizStep): Denotes a specific activity within a business
process. The business step field of an event specifies what business process
step was taking place that caused the event to be captured. Identifiers for
business steps are specified in section 7.1.
Example: an EPCIS event is generated as a product departs the location
identified by the Read Point. Business Step = “shipping”>
□ Disposition (disposition): Denotes the business state of an object. The
disposition field of an event specifies the business condition of the subject of
the event (the things specified in the “what” dimension), subsequent to the
event. The disposition is assumed to hold true until another event indicates a
change of disposition. Identifiers for dispositions and persistent dispositions
(see below) are specified in section 7.2.
© ISO/IEC 2024 – All rights reserved
Core Business Vocabulary (CBV) Standard
Example: an EPCIS event is generated and afterward the products can be sold
as-is and customers can access product for purchase. Disposition = identifier that denotes “sellable and accessible”>
□ Persistent Disposition (persistentDisposition): Denotes the persistent
business state of an object. The persistentDisposition field of an event is
used to set or unset the business condition of the subject of the event (the
things specified in the “what” dimension), subsequent to the event. Unlike the
disposition, the persistentDisposition is not overridden by subsequently set
dispositions or persistent dispositions, and can only be negated or rescinded by
being explicitly "unset". Identifiers for dispositions and persistent dispositions
are specified in section 7.2.
Example: an EPCIS event is generated to infer the presence of children still
aggregated to their parent (i.e., not yet unpacked nor physically scanned).
persistentDisposition = inferred”>
□ Business Transaction References: An EPCIS event may refer to one or
more business transaction documents. Each such reference consists of two
identifiers:
- Business Transaction Type: Denotes a particular kind of business
transaction. Example: the identifier that denotes “purchase order”.
Identifiers for business transaction types are specified in section 7.4.
- Business Transaction Identifier: Denotes a specific business transaction
document of the type indicated by the Business Transaction Type.
Example: #123456> Identifiers for business transactions are specified in section 8.5.
□ Source and Destination References: An EPCIS event may refer to one or
more sources and/or destinations that describe the endpoints of a business
transfer of which the event is a part. Each source or destination reference
consists of two identifiers:
- Source or Destination Type: Denotes a particular kind of source or
destination. Example: the identifier that denotes “owning party”.
Identifiers for source and destination types are specified in section 7.4.
- Source or Destination Identifier: Denotes a source or destination of the
type indicated by the Business Transaction Type. Example: that denotes Example Corp as an owning party> Identifiers for sources and
destinations are specified in section 8.6.
■ The “how” dimension contains the SensorElementList of one or more
SensorElements, which is used to express conditional information about an object
or physical location, as captured by associated sensors. Each SensorElement
contains:
- one or more sensorReport elements, including one or more attributes that
pertain to a specific sensor observation;
- an optional sensorMetadata element, including one or more meta data
attributes that apply to all sensorReport elements within the same Sensor
Element.
The SensorElement provides a rich and flexible framework to convey all kind of
sensor-based data, from simple physical observations via multi-dimensional
observations to outputs of smart sensor devices. This can include, but is not
limited to, information on the concentration of chemical substances and
microorganisms.
© ISO/IEC 2024 – All rights reserved
Core Business Vocabulary (CBV) Standard
3.2 Overview of EPCIS event "dimensions" (non-normative)
Dimension in Categorisation Field EPCIS section CBV section
EPCIS/CBV in
in which the field in which its
1.x EPCIS/CBV 2.0 is defined value range is
specified
WHAT Objects epcList
7.4.2 EPC Tag Data
in
ObjectEvent Standard
Focus
(TDS)
7.4.4
(WHAT)
section
TransactionEve
6,"EPC URI"
nt
parentID
7.4.3
8.2 Physical
AggregationEve
or Digital
nt
Objects
(Instance)
7.4.4
TransactionEve
nt
7.4.6
AssociationEve
nt
childEPCs
7.4.3
AggregationEve
nt
7.4.6
AssociationEve
nt
inputEPCList
7.4.5
Transformation
outputEPCList
Event
quantityList
7.4.2 EPC Tag Data
ObjectEvent Standard
(TDS)
7.4.5
section
TransactionEve
8,"URIs for
nt
EPC Pure
Identity
childQuantityL
7.4.3
Patterns"
ist
AggregationEve
nt
7.4.6
AssociationEve
8.3 Physical
nt
or Digital
Objects
inputQuantityL
7.4.5 (Class)
ist
Transformation
Event
outputQuantity
List
© ISO/IEC 2024 – All rights reserved
Cla ss Ins tan ce
Core Business Vocabulary (CBV) Standard
Dimension in Categorisation Field EPCIS section CBV section
EPCIS/CBV in
in which the field in which its
1.x EPCIS/CBV 2.0 is defined value range is
specified
WHEN Chronolog eventTime
7.4.1
y
EPCISEvent
(WHEN)
eventTimeZon
eOffset
recordTime
7.4.1
EPCISEvent
WHERE Whereabou readPoint 8.4
7.4.2
ts Locations
ObjectEvent
(WHERE)
bizLocation
7.4.3
AggregationE
vent
7.4.4
TransactionE
vent
7.4.5
Transformati
onEvent
7.4.6
AssociationE
vent
n/a Condition sensorElemen 7.6 Sensor
7.4.2
tList Measuremen
(HOW)
ObjectEvent
t Types
7.4.3
8.9
AggregationE
Chemical
vent
substance
identifier
7.4.4
s
TransactionE
vent
8.10
Microorgan
7.4.5
ism
Transformati
identifier
onEvent
s
7.4.6
AssociationE
vent
7.1 Business
bizStep
WHY Business
7.4.2
Steps
ObjectEvent
Context
7.4.3
8.5 Business
(WHY) bizTransactio
AggregationEve
Transactions
nList
nt
© ISO/IEC 2024 – All rights reserved
Core Business Vocabulary (CBV) Standard
Dimension in Categorisation Field EPCIS section CBV section
EPCIS/CBV in
in which the field in which its
1.x EPCIS/CBV 2.0 is defined value range is
specified
7.4.4
7.1
disposition
TransactionEve
Dispositions
nt
7.4.5
persistentDis 7.1
Transformation
Dispositions
position
Event
7.4.6
8.6
sourceList
AssociationEve
Source/Desti
nt
destination
nation
List
Identifiers
9 Trade Item
ilmd
7.3.7
Other
Master Data
Instance/lot
fields
master data
(ILMD)
(core field)
action
7.3.2 Action
type
(transformati 8.7
transformatio
7.4.5
onID) Transformati
nID
Transformation
on
Event
Identifiers
(core field) eventID 8.8 Event
7.4.1
Identifiers
EPCISEvent
(core field) errorDeclarati 7.5 Error
7.4.1
on Reason
EPCISEvent
Identifiers
8.8 Event
Identifiers
3.3 Vocabulary kinds
(The material in this section is adapted directly from [EPCIS], section 6.2.)
Vocabularies are used extensively within EPCIS to model conceptual, physical, and
digital entities that exist in the real world.
Examples of vocabularies defined in the EPCIS standard are business steps,
dispositions, location identifiers, physical or digital object identifiers, business
transaction type names, and business transaction identifiers. In each case, a
vocabulary represents a finite (though open-ended) set of alternatives that may
appear in specific fields of events.
© ISO/IEC 2024 – All rights reserved
Core Business Vocabulary (CBV) Standard
It is useful to distinguish two kinds of vocabularies, which follow different patterns in
the way they are defined and extended over time:
■ Standard Vocabulary: A Standard Vocabulary is a set of Vocabulary Elements
whose definition and meaning must be agreed to in advance by trading partners
who will exchange events using the vocabulary.
■ User Vocabulary: A User Vocabulary is a set of Vocabulary Elements whose
definition and meaning are under the control of a single organisation.
These concepts are explained in more detail below.
3.3.1 Standard Vocabulary
A Standard Vocabulary is a set of Vocabulary Elements whose definition and meaning
must be agreed to in advance by trading partners who will exchange events using the
vocabulary. For example, the EPCIS standard defines a vocabulary called “business
step,” whose elements are identifiers denoting such things as “shipping,” “receiving,”
and so on. One trading partner may generate an event having a business step of
“shipping,” and another partner receiving that event through a query can interpret it
because of a prior agreement as to what “shipping” means.
Standard Vocabulary elements tend to be defined by organisations of multiple end
users, such as GS1, industry consortia outside GS1, private trading partner groups,
and so on. The master data associated with Standard Vocabulary elements, if any
master data is defined at all, are defined by those same organisations, and tend to be
distributed to users as part of a standard or by some similar means. New vocabulary
elements within a given Standard Vocabulary tend to be introduced through a very
deliberate and occasional process, such as the ratification of a new version of a
standard or through a vote of an industry group.
The Standard Vocabularies specified in the CBV are: sections 7.1 (Business steps), 7.2
(Dispositions), 7.3 (Business Transaction Types), 7.4 (Source/Destination types), 7.5
(Error reason identifiers) 7.6 (Sensor measurement types), 7.7 (Sensor alert types)
and 7.8 (Sensor report component type). The elements and definitions are agreed to
by parties prior to exchanging data, and there is general agreement on their meaning.
Example: the following are two different ways of expressing a business step identifier,
as defined in section 7.1 :
urn:epcglobal:cbv:bizstep:receiving
https://ref.gs1.org/cbv/Bizstep-receiving
This identifier is defined by the GS1 CBV standard, and its meaning is known and
accepted by those who implement the standard. For each of the identifiers defined,
equivalent terms and values are also included in the GS1 Web Vocabulary published at
https://www.gs1.org/voc/. Both URI structures are considered to be semantically
equivalent via an owl:sameAs relationship.
While an individual end user organisation acting alone may introduce a new Standard
Vocabulary element, such an element would have limited use in a data exchange
setting, and would probably only be used within an organisation’s four walls. On the
other hand, an industry consortium or other group of trading partners may define and
agree on standard vocabulary elements beyond those defined by the CBV, and these
may be usefully used within that trading group.
3.3.2 User Vocabulary
A User Vocabulary is a set of Vocabulary Elements whose definition and meaning are
under the control of a single organisation. For example, the EPCIS standard defines a
vocabulary called “business location,” whose elements are identifiers denoting such
things as “Acme Corp. Distribution Centre #3.” The location identifier and any
associated master data is assigned by the user. Acme Corp may generate an event
whose business location field contains the identifier that denotes “Acme Corp.
Distribution Centre #3,” and another partner receiving that event through a query can
interpret it either because the partner recognises the identifier as being identical to the
identifier received in other events that took place in the same location, or because the
partner consults master data attributes associated with the location identifier, or both.
© ISO/IEC 2024 – All rights reserved
Core Business Vocabulary (CBV) Standard
Example:
urn:epc:id:sgln:9521414.12345.400
This identifier is assigned by the End User who has been assigned the GS1 Company
Prefix 9521414, and the meaning of the identifier (that is, what location it denotes) is
determined exclusively by that end user. Another End User can understand the
meaning of this identifier by consulting associated master data.
User Vocabulary elements are primarily defined by individual end user organisations
acting independently. The master data associated with User Vocabulary elements are
typically defined by those same organisations, and are usually distributed to trading
partners through the EPCIS Query Interface or other data exchange / data
synchronisation mechanisms. New vocabulary elements within a given User Vocabulary
are introduced at the sole discretion of an end user, and trading partners must be
prepared to respond accordingly.
While the CBV does not (and as the discussion above makes clear, cannot) specify
particular user vocabulary elements, the CBV does provide syntax templates that are
recommended for use by End Users in constructing their own user vocabulary
elements. See section 8.1. The user vocabularies for which templates are specified in
this standard are: 8.2 (Physical or digital objects (Instance-Level Identification)) and
8.4 (Locations) which include both read points and business locations 8.5 (Business
transactions), 8.7 (Source/Destination identifiers),8.8 (Transformation identifiers), 8.9
(Event identifiers), 8.10 (Chemical substance identifiers) and 8.11 (Microorganism
identifiers).
4 Terminology and typographical conventions
Within this standard, the terms SHALL, SHALL NOT, SHOULD, SHOULD NOT, MAY,
NEED NOT, CAN, and CANNOT are to be interpreted as specified in section 7 ("Verbal
forms for expressions of provisions") of the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2, 2018, 8th
edition [ISODir2]. When used in this way, these terms will always be shown in ALL
CAPS; when these words appear in ordinary typeface they are intended to have their
ordinary English meaning.
All sections of this document, with the exception of sections 2, 3 and 3 are normative,
except where explicitly noted as non-normative.
The following typographical conventions are used throughout the document:
■ ALL CAPS type is used for the special terms from [ISODir2] enumerated above.
■ Monospace type is used to denote programming language, UML, XML and
JSON/JSON-LD identifiers, as well as for the text of XML and JSON/JSON-LD
documents.
5 Compliance and compatibility
The CBV is designed to facilitate interoperability in EPCIS data exchange by providing
standard values for vocabulary elements to be included in EPCIS data. The standard
recognises that the greatest interoperability is achieved when all data conforms to the
standard, and also recognises that individual End Users or groups of trading partners
may need to extend the standard in certain situations.
To that end, this standard defines two levels of conformance for EPCIS documents:
■ CBV-Compliant: An EPCIS document that only uses vocabulary identifiers
specified in the CBV in the standard fields of EPCIS events.
■ CBV-Compatible: An EPCIS document that uses a combination of vocabulary
identifiers specified in the CBV and other identifiers that are outside the standard.
An EPCIS document is neither CBV-Compliant nor CBV-Compatible if it wrongly uses
identifiers defined in the CBV or if it violates any other rules specified herein.
The formal definition of these terms is specified below.
© ISO/IEC 2024 – All rights reserved
Core Business Vocabulary (CBV) Standard
5.1 CBV-Compliant
A “CBV-Compliant Document” is a document that conforms to the schema and other
constraints specified in [EPCIS2.0], and which furthermore conforms to all the
normative language in this standard that pertains to a “CBV-Compliant Document.”
A “CBV-Compliant Application” is any application for which both of the following are
true:
■ If it operates in a mode where it claims to accept a CBV-Compliant Document as
an input, the application SHALL accept any document that is a CBV-Compliant
Document according to this standard, and furthermore in processing that input
SHALL interpret each CBV identifier according to the meaning specified herein.
■ If it operates in a mode where it claims to produce a CBV-Compliant Document as
an output, the application SHALL only produce a document that is a CBV-Compliant
Document according to this standard, and furthermore in generating that output
SHALL only use CBV identifiers to denote their meaning as specified herein.
The following list summarises the requirements for an EPCIS document to be a “CBV-
Compliant Document,” as specified elsewhere in this standard:
■ A CBV-Compliant Document SHALL conform to the schema and other constraints
specified in [EPCIS 2.0].
■ A CBV-Compliant Document SHALL NOT use any URI beginning with
urn:epcglobal:cbv: except as specified in this standard.
■ Each EPCIS event in a CBV-Compliant Document SHALL include a bizStep field.
The value of the bizStep field SHALL be a URI consisting of one of the following
two prefixes:
□ urn:epcglobal:cbv:bizstep:
□ https://ref.gs1.org/cbv/BizStep-
followed by the string specified in the first column of some row of the table in section
7.1.3. These two URI structures are considered to be semantically equivalent via an
owl:sameAs relationship.
■ A CBV-Compliant Document MAY include a disposition field. If the
disposition field is present, the value of the disposition field SHALL be a
URI consisting of one of the following two prefixes:
□ urn:epcglobal:cbv:disp:
□ https://ref.gs1.org/cbv/Disp-
followed by the string specified in the first column of some row of the table in section
7.2.3. These two URI structures are considered to be semantically equivalent via an
owl:sameAs relationship.
■ A CBV-Compliant Document MAY include a persistentDisposition field. If the
persistentDisposition field is present, the value of the disposition field
SHALL be a URI consisting of one of the following two prefixes:
□ urn:epcglobal:cbv:disp:
□ https://ref.gs1.org/cbv/Disp-
followed by the string specified in the first column of some row of the table in section
7.2.3. These two URI structures are considered to be semantically equivalent via an
owl:sameAs relationship.
■ Each EPCIS event in a CBV-Compliant Document MAY include one or more
bizTransaction elements. If bizTransaction elements are present, each
such element MAY include a type attribute. If a given bizTransaction element
includes a type attribute, the value of the type attribute SHALL be a URI
consisting of one of the following two prefixes:
□ urn:epcglobal:cbv:btt:
□ https://ref.gs1.org/cbv/BTT-
© ISO/IEC 2024 – All rights reserved
Core Business Vocabulary (CBV) Standard
followed by the string specified in the first column of some row of the table in section
7.3.3. These two URI structures are considered to be semantically equivalent via an
owl:sameAs relationship.
■ Each EPCIS event in a CBV-Compliant Document MAY include one or more source
or destination elements. The value of the type attribute of each such element
SHALL be a URI consisting of one of the following two prefixes:
□ urn:epcglobal:cbv:sdt:
□ https://ref.gs1.org/cbv/SDT-
followed by the string specified in the first column of some row of the table in section
7.4.3. These two URI structures are considered to be semantically equivalent via an
owl:sameAs relationship.
■ Each EPCIS event in a CBV-Compliant Document MAY include an
ErrorDeclaration element, and when present, the ErrorDeclaration
element MAY include a reason field. When present in a CBV-Compliant Document,
the value of the reason field of the ErrorDeclaration element SHALL be a
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