ISO/IEC 13249-1:2016 defines a number of packages of generic data types and table structures common to various kinds of data used in multimedia and application areas, to enable that data to be stored and manipulated in an SQL database. The package in each subject area is defined as a part of ISO/IEC 13249.

ISO/IEC 13249-1:2016 defines those concepts, notations and conventions that are common to two or more other parts of ISO/IEC 13249. In particular, it describes the way parts of ISO/IEC 9075 are used to define the user-defined types and their behaviour and views as a representation of table structures appropriate to each subject area.