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37 CFR 1.824: Form and format for a nucleotide and/or amino acid sequence submissions as an ASCII plain text file

Taken from the Ninth Edition of the MPEP, Revision 07.2022, Published February 2023

CFR Part Index | Key Word Index
Part 1: Rules of Practice in Patent Cases
Subpart G - Biotechnology Invention Disclosures
Application Disclosures Containing Nucleotide And/Or Amino Acid Sequences

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1.824    Form and format for a nucleotide and/or amino acid sequence submissions as an ASCII plain text file

[Editor Note: This rule is applicable to applications containing a nucleotide and/or amino acid sequence filed prior to July 1, 2022. See §§ 1.831 through 1.835 for rules applicable on or after July 1, 2022.]
  • (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.
  • (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).
[Added, 55 FR 18230, May 1, 1990, effective Oct. 1, 1990; revised, 63 FR 29620, June 1, 1998, effective July 1, 1998; revised, 65 FR 54604, Sept. 8, 2000, effective Sept. 8, 2000 (effective date corrected, 65 FR 78958, Dec. 18, 2000); revised, 86 FR 57035, Oct. 14, 2021, effective Nov. 15, 2021]