Manual of Patent Examining Procedure - MPEP

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- Administrative Instructions Under the PCT

Appendices

Appendix 1: Numeric Identifiers

Appendix 2: Nucleotide and Amino Acid Symbols and Feature Table

	Table 1:	List of Nucleotides
	Table 2:	List of Modified Nucleotides
	Table 3:	List of Amino Acids
	Table 4:	List of Modified and Unusual Amino Acids
	Table 5:	List of Feature Keys Related to Nucleotide Sequences
	Table 6:	List of Feature Keys Related to Protein Sequences

Appendix 3: Specimen Sequence Listing

[Appendices 1 to 3 to Annex C follow]

Only numeric identifiers as defined below may be used in sequence listings submitted in applications. The text of the data element headings given below shall not be included in the sequence listings.

Numeric identifiers of mandatory data elements, that is, data elements which must be included in all sequence listings (see paragraph 25 of this Standard: items 110, 120, 160, 210, 211, 212, 213 and 400) and numeric identifiers of data elements which must be included in circumstances specified in this Standard (see paragraphs 26, 27, 28, 29 and 30 of this Standard: items 130, 140, 141, 150 and 151, and 220 to 223) are marked by the symbol "M."

Numeric identifiers of optional data elements (see paragraph 31 of this Standard) are marked by the symbol "O."

Symbol	Meaning	Origin of designation
a	a	adenine
g	g	guanine
c	c	cytosine
t	t	thymine
u	u	uracil
r	g or a	purine
y	t/u or c	pyrimidine
m	a or c	amino
k	g or t/u	keto
s	g or c	strong interactions 3H-bonds
w	a or t/u	weak interactions 2H-bonds
b	g or c or t/u	not a
d	a or g or t/u	not c
h	a or c or t/u	not g
v	a or g or c	not t, not u
n	a or g or c or t/u, unknown, or other	any

[Annex C, Appendix 3, follows]

Specimen Sequence Listing

[Annex C-^bis follows]

Introduction

1. These technical requirements have been elaborated so as to provide standardization of the presentation of tables related to nucleotide and amino acid sequence listings in international patent applications. These technical requirements are intended to allow the applicant to draw up such tables in a manner which is acceptable to all receiving Offices, International Searching Authorities, International Preliminary Examining Authorities and to the International Bureau for the purposes of the international phase and to all designated and elected Offices for the purposes of the national phase.

Definition

2. For the purposes of these technical requirements, "competent Authority" is the International Searching Authority that is to carry out the international search on the international application, or the International Preliminary Examining Authority that is to carry out the international preliminary examination on the international application, or the designated/elected Office before which the processing of the international application has started.

Tables related to sequence listings

3. Tables filed in electronic form under Section 801(a) shall comply with one of the following character formats:

(i) UTF-8-encoded Unicode 3.0; or

(ii) XML format conforming to the "Application-Body" Document Type Definition referred to in Appendix I of Annex F;

4. The spatial relationships (e.g., columns and rows) of the table elements shall be maintained.

5. At the option of the competent Authority, file compression is acceptable, so long as the compressed file is in a self-extracting format that will decompress on a Personal Computer Operating system that is acceptable to the competent Authority and to the International Bureau.

6. Each table shall be contained within a separate electronic file on any electronic medium that is acceptable to the competent Authority. The file recorded on the electronic medium that is acceptable to the competent Authority shall be encoded using IBM Code Page 437, IBM Code Page 932 or a compatible code page. A compatible code page, as would be required for, for example, Japanese, Chinese, Cyrillic, Arabic, Greek or Hebrew characters, is one that assigns the Roman alphabet and numerals to the same hexadecimal positions as do the specified code pages.

7. Tables filed in electronic form may be created by any means, as long as the table on an electronic medium that is acceptable to the competent Authority is readable under a Personal Computer Operating system that is acceptable to the competent Authority and to the International Bureau.

8. If the electronic medium that is acceptable to the competent Authority is submitted after the date of filing of an application, the labels shall also include the filing date of the application and the application number.

[Annex D follows]

The following information shall be extracted from the front page of the pamphlet of each published international application and shall, in accordance with Rule 86.1(a)(i), appear in the corresponding entry of the Gazette:

1. as to the international publication:

1.1 the international publication number

1.2 the date of the international publication

1.3 an indication whether the following items were published in the pamphlet:

1.31 international search report

1.32 declaration under Article 17(2)

1.33 claims amended under Article 19(1)

1.34 statement under Article 19(1)

1.35 [Deleted]

1.36 request for rectification under the third sentence of Rule 91.1(f)

1.37 information concerning a priority claim which was considered not to have been made, published upon request made under Rule 26^bis.2(c)

1.4 the language in which the international application was filed

1.5 the language of publication of the international application

2. as to the international application:

2.1 the title of the invention

2.2 the symbol(s) of the International Patent Classification (IPC)

2.3 the international application number

2.4 the international filing date

3. as to any priority claim:

3.1 the application number of the earlier application

3.2 the date on which the earlier application was filed

3.3 where the earlier application is:

3.31 a national application: the country in which the earlier application was filed

3.32 a regional application: the authority entrusted with the granting of regional patents under the applicable regional patent treaty and, in the case referred to in Rule 4.10(b)(ii), a country party to the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property for which that earlier application was filed

3.33 an international application: the receiving Office with which it was filed

4. as to the applicant, inventor and agent:

4.1 their name(s)

4.2 their mailing address(es)

5. as to the designated States:

5.1 their names

5.2 the indication of any wish for a regional patent

5.3 the indication that every kind of protection available is sought, unless otherwise indicated

6. as to a statement concerning non-prejudicial disclosure or exception to lack of novelty:

6.1 the date of the disclosure

6.2 the place of the disclosure

6.3 the kind of the disclosure (e.g., exhibition, scientific publication, conference reports, etc.)

6.4 the title of the exhibition, publication or conference

7. as to any indication in relation to deposited biological material furnished under Rule 13^bis separately from the description:

7.1 the fact that such indication is published

7.2 the date on which the International Bureau received such indication

8. as to any declaration referred to in Rule 4.17 which was received by the International Bureau before the expiration of the time limit under Rule 26^ter.1:

8.1 the fact that such a declaration was made and a reference to the applicable item in Rule 4.17 under which it was made

8.2 an indication of those designations for the purposes of which such declaration was made.

1. The time limits applicable under Articles 22 and 39 in respect of each Contracting State.

2. The list of the non-patent literature agreed upon by the International Searching Authorities for inclusion in the minimum documentation.

3. The names of the national Offices which do not wish to receive copies under Article 13(2)(c).

4. The provisions of the national laws of Contracting States concerning international-type search.

5. The text of the agreements entered into between the International Bureau and the International Searching Authorities or the International Preliminary Examining Authorities.

6. The names of the national Offices which entirely or in part waived their rights to any communication under Article 20.

7. The names of the Contracting States which are bound by Chapter II of the PCT.

8. Index of concordance of international application numbers and international publication numbers, listed according to international application numbers.

9. Index of applicants' names giving, for each name, the corresponding international publication number(s).

10. Index of international publication numbers, grouped according to the International Patent Classification symbols.

11. Indication of any subject matter that will not be searched or examined by the various International Searching and Preliminary Examining Authorities under Rules 39 and 67.

12. Requirements of designated and elected Offices under Rules 49.5 and 76.5 in relation to the furnishing of translations.

13. The dates defining the period referred to in Rule 32.1(b) during which the international application, whose effects may be extended to a successor State under Rule 32.1, must have been filed.

[Annex F follows]

[The text of Annex F, which is not reproduced here, is available from WIPO's website at http://www.wipo.org/pct/en/index">1. Introduction