The feature interaction problem in telecommunications systems increasingly obstructs the evolution of such systems. We develop formal detection criteria which render a necessary (but less than sufficient) condition for feature interactions. It can be checked mechanically and points out all potentially critical spots. These have to be analyzed manually. The resulting resolution decisions are incorporated formally. Some prototype tool support is already available. A prerequisite for formal criteria is a formal definition of the problem. Since the notions of feature and feature interaction are often used in a rather fuzzy way, we attempt a formal definition first and discuss which aspects can be included in a formalization (and therefore in a detection method). This paper describes ongoing work. D. Gaïti (ed.
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