By Donald Zuhn --
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published a notice published in today's Federal Register (77 Fed. Reg. 28541) seeking comments regarding an international effort to revise the standard for Sequence Listing submissions. The new standard -- proposed WIPO ST.26 -- would require that Sequence Listings be submitted in extensible mark-up language (XML) format, which the Office indicated would more closely align the requirements of the Sequence Listing standard with those of public sequence database providers.
Currently, Sequence Listings must be submitted in accordance with World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Standard ST.25 (see portion below), which became effective in 1998. U.S. Patent Rules concerning application disclosures of certain nucleotide and amino acid sequences (i.e., 37 C.F.R. §§ 1.821 - 1.825) are consistent with WIPO ST.25.
In October 2010, the Committee on WIPO Standards (CWS) established a Task Force, led by the European Patent Organization (EPO), to propose a revised standard for the filing of Sequence Listings in XML format (see Example below). The XML standard developed by the Task Force, tentatively designated WIPO ST.26, has three components: (i) the body of the standard, (ii) a first annex setting forth the controlled vocabularies for use with the sequence part of the standard, and (iii) a second annex setting forth the Document Type Definition (DTD) for the standard (the three components making up the new standard can be found at the USPTO's webpage on WIPO ST.26). The new standard is expected to be adopted by the CWS in 2013. Meanwhile, the Task Force has begun to explore the development of a tool for converting Sequence Listings from one format into another.
Noting that standard is likely to be adopted, the Office is requesting comments "on any aspect of the proposed standard or Annexes, transition issues, or expected implementation in the United States." In particular, the Office's notice lists six topics on which it is seeking public comment: (1) Comprehensiveness and Clarity, (2) Absence of PCT Procedure, (3) Feature Keys and Qualifiers, (4) Definition of a Sequence for which a Sequence Listing is Required, (5) Publications (references), and (6) Transition Issues. Additional information regarding these topics can be found on pages 28542-53 of the notice.
Comments regarding the proposed standard can be submitted by e-mail to seq_listing_xml@uspto.gov or by regular mail to: Mail Stop Comments-Patents, Commissioner for Patents, P.O. Box 1450, Alexandria, VA 22313–1450, marked to the attention of Susan C. Wolski, Office of Patent Cooperation Treaty Legal Administration, Office of the Associate Commissioner for Patent Examination Policy. Comments must be submitted by July 16, 2012.
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