2425 Form and Format for a Nucleotide and/or Amino Acid Sequence Submission as an ASCII Plain Text File under WIPO ST.25 [R-07.2022]
[Editor Note: This section is not applicable to applications filed on or after July 1, 2022, having disclosures of nucleotide and/or amino acid sequences as defined in 37 CFR 1.831(b). See MPEP §§ 2412-2419 for guidance on WIPO ST.26 requirements for applications filed on or after July 1, 2022.]
37 CFR 1.824 Form and format for a nucleotide and/or amino acid sequence submissions as an ASCII plain text file.
- (a) A “Sequence Listing” under § 1.821(c)(1) and the CRF required by § 1.821(e)
submitted as an ASCII plain text file may be created by any means, such as text
editors, nucleotide/amino acid sequence editors, or other custom computer
programs; however, the ASCII plain text file must conform to the following
requirements:
- (1) Must have the following compatibilities:
- (i) Computer compatibility: PC or Mac®; and
- (ii) Operating system compatibility: MS–DOS®, MS-Windows®, Mac OS®, or Unix®/Linux®.
- (2) Must be in ASCII plain text, where:
- (i) All printable characters (including the space character) are permitted; and
- (ii) No nonprintable (ASCII control) characters are permitted, except ASCII CRLF or LF as line terminators.
- (3) Must be named as *.txt, where “*” is one character or a combination of characters limited to upper- or lowercase letters, numbers, hyphens, and underscores and does not exceed 60 characters in total, excluding the extension. No spaces or other types of characters are permitted in the file name.
- (4) Must contain no more than 74 printable characters in each line.
- (5) Pagination is not permitted; the ASCII plain text file must be one continuous file, with no “hard page break” codes and no page numbering.
- (1) Must have the following compatibilities:
- (b) The ASCII plain text file must contain a copy of a single
“Sequence Listing” in a single file and be submitted either:
- (1) Electronically via the USPTO patent electronic filing system, where the file must not exceed 100 MB, and file compression is not permitted; or
- (2) On a read-only optical disc(s), in compliance with §
1.52(e), where:
- (i) A file that is not compressed must be contained on a single read-only optical disc;
- (ii) The file may be compressed using WinZip®, 7-Zip, or Unix®/Linux® Zip;
- (iii) A compressed file must not be self-extracting; and
- (iv) A compressed ASCII plain text file that does not fit on a single read-only optical disc may be split into multiple file parts, in accordance with the target read-only optical disc size, and labeled in compliance with § 1.52(e)(5)(vi).
37 CFR 1.824 sets forth the requirements for sequence submissions as an ASCII plain text file. Any computer editing program may be utilized to produce the ASCII plain text file; however, the resultant file must have the characteristics specified in 37 CFR 1.824.
If the “Sequence Listing” required by 37 CFR 1.821(c) cannot be submitted via USPTO patent electronic filing system because it is larger than 100 megabytes (see MPEP § 2422.03(a)(III)), the “Sequence Listing” may be submitted on read-only optical disc(s) in compliance with 37 CFR 1.52(e). See 37 CFR 1.824(b)(2).
