Main changes in 2018 revision of ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2
General comment The 2016 edition of ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2, completely redrafted and restructured the text of the 2011 edition. Most of the changes made in the 2018 edition are simple clarifications of the new text. Some elements of the 2011 edition which were removed in the 2016 edition have been reintroduced.
Terminological entries Terminological entries are reintroduced for the following terms (these terminological entries were removed in the 2016 edition): Technical Specification Publicly Available Specification Guide Technical Report
Terms and definitions Clarification is reintroduced on the following aspects of terms and definitions (these clarifications were removed in the 2016 edition): Terms shall be presented in their basic grammatical form Definitions shall not take the form of and shall not contain a requirement
Verbal forms Verbal forms used to express provisions are modified as follows: “needs to” and “need not” are no longer proposed as equivalent expressions of requirements “need not” is replaced by “may not” as the expression of permission in the negative form
Structure & clause numbering Clarification is given on the following: The Scope shall be numbered as Clause 1 The Normative references clause shall be numbered as Clause 2 and shall only appear once in a document The Terms and definitions clause shall be numbered as Clause 3 and shall only appear once in a document The Bibliography shall not have a clause number
Referencing of patented items To close a loophole in the Common Patent Policy in the case of normative references, clarification is provided on the rules relating to referencing of patented items as follows: In the absence of appropriate ISO or IEC documents, those published by other bodies may be listed as normative references provided that (…) e) any patented item required for the implementation of the ISO and/or IEC deliverable in the referenced document is available to be licensed in accordance with subclause 2.14 of ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1, 2018, “Reference to Patented items”
Miscellaneous Clarification is given that informative annexes may contain optional requirements The correct use of notes and footnotes is summarized in a new table The correct presentation of a graph is illustrated in a new figure Clarification of where to find additional rules on management standards and management system standards is specified in a separate clause