Abstract
Stability is a key quality of a conceptual model. A stable conceptual model is able to withstand changes in domain conceptualization and user requirements without major impact. This paper addresses stability of ontology-driven conceptual models by presenting a number of patterns in the OntoUML language which are derived from characteristics of the foundational ontology underlying the language. The discussed stability patterns include: orthogonal subtype partitions (more specifically phase and subkind partitions), multi-level modeling with high-order types, reification of intrinsic and relational aspects, and model taxonomy refactoring with non-sortal types.