We propose an approach to formalize the patterns and to automatically apply the formalized patterns. In our case, we use the pattern paradigm to refine security policies of a workflow. A policy refinement process derives lowlevel workflow policies from high-level and abstract policies specified by stakeholders. Such refinement process requires domain-specific expertise knowledge, which will be captured by using the pattern paradigm. These refinement patterns are formalized by using both description logic and temporal logic formalisms.