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Notice from the European
Patent Office dated 27 May 2022 concerning the filing of sequence
listings in the international (PCT) procedure before the EPO as
receiving Office
This text is intended for publication in the
Official Journal (OJ) of the EPO. It is made available in advance on
the EPO website merely as a courtesy to the public. Only the text
subsequently published in the officially certified PDF file of the OJ is
authentic. It cannot be guaranteed that this advance version accurately
replicates that text.
1. This notice complements the information
previously published in the notice from the EPO dated 9 December 2021
concerning the filing of sequence listings.[ 1 ]
It provides some additional information on the procedure before the EPO
as receiving Office applicable under the PCT from 1 July 2022 in the
case of non-compliance with WIPO Standard ST.26 of a sequence listing disclosing nucleotide and/or amino acid sequences.
2. As announced in the notice from the EPO
dated 9 December 2021, international applications filed on or after
1 July 2022 disclosing nucleotide and/or amino acid sequences must
include a sequence listing part of the description complying with WIPO
Standard ST.26 (Rule 5.2 PCT).
3. Where the international application as
filed contains an electronic file appearing to be a sequence listing in a
file format compliant with WIPO Standard ST.26, the EPO will not take
into account the material contained in such an electronic file for the
calculation of the international filing fee (Administrative Instructions
under the PCT, section 707 (a-bis)).
4. Where the EPO as receiving Office finds
that a separate electronic file disclosing sequences appears to be in a
format other than WIPO Standard ST.26 XML format, it will not consider
that file to be part of the international application. Instead, the EPO
as receiving Office will convert the file into the format of the main
part of the description (Administrative Instructions under the PCT,
Annex C, paragraph 26) and invite the applicant to confirm whether the
content of that converted file is intended to form part of the
description and to pay any corresponding page fee (Form PCT/RO/132)
within a time limit of one month of the date of the invitation
(Administrative Instructions under the PCT, Annex C, paragraph 26). Any
payment received by the receiving Office within the time limit mentioned
above will be considered as confirmation that the content of the
converted file is to be part of the international application.
5. The content of the converted file will
not be considered part of the international application if the applicant
so indicates or if the applicant fails, within the time limit mentioned
in paragraph 4, to pay the applicable fees. It will therefore not be
part of the priority document prepared by the EPO as receiving Office
pursuant to Rule 17.1(b) PCT.