"genman" wrote : For inheritence, it seems appropriate to add an attribute rather than a separate annotation, for example: | | @Replicable(instanceOf=true) | or | @Replicable(subclasses=true) | | There might be some sort of relation term that would fit better than "instanceof", that means "child classes also". | Idea of using attribute is very good but it won't work as is. If you look at jbosscache-aop.xml, you will see that the now @InstanceOfPojoCacheable tag is used inside the JBoss Aop prepare statement: | <prepare expr="field(!static * $instanceof{(a)org.jboss.cache.pojo.annotation.InstanceOfPojoCacheable}-&gt;*)&quot; /> | So replace that with a generic annotation with additional attribute won't work. "sub-class" in better than InstanceOf (I am following the JBoss Aop usage, as you can see here), but SubClassOfReplicable, e.g., seems wordy? View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=3986033#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...