2016 Comments on Standard ST.26 for the Presentation of Nucleotide and Amino Acid Sequence Listings Using XML

A notice titled "Standard ST.26 - Request for Comments on the Recommended Standard for the Presentation of Nucleotide and Amino Acid Sequence Listings Using XML (eXtensible Markup Language)" was published in the Federal Register at 81 FR 74775(link is external) (October 27, 2016). The notice seeks additional public comment on the continuing international effort to revise World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Standard ST.26 for the presentation of nucleotide and/or amino acid sequences in patent applications. Once the revision of WIPO Standard ST.26 has been considered and approved by the Committee on WIPO Standards (CWS), the United States rules of practice will be amended to implement it.

The USPTO issued a first request for public comment on an early draft of WIPO Standard ST.26 in May 2012. Public comments submitted in response to the May 2012 request are available here.

Since May 2012, WIPO Standard ST.26 has been revised, and an interim version of WIPO Standard ST.26 was adopted in March 2016 by the CWS. The interim version has not been implemented pending further consideration by the CWS.

October 2016 Versions of the WIPO Standard ST.26 Documents

Since the March 2016 adoption of the interim version, efforts have been undertaken to finalize WIPO Standard ST.26 and to improve its effectiveness once implemented. Please follow the links below for the October 2016 versions of the WIPO Standard ST.26 documents:

• Standard ST.26 - Main Body - revised*
• Annex I – Controlled vocabulary - revised
• Annex II – Document Type Definition for Sequence Listing (DTD) - not revised
• Annex III – Sequence Listing Specimen (XML file) - not revised
• Annex IV/V – Character Subset from the Unicode Basic Latin Code Table - not revised
  and Additional data exchange requirements (for patent offices only) - not revised
• Annex VI – Guidance Document - newly proposed
  • Guidance Document Index - newly proposed
  • Guidance Document SEQL (Sample XML sequence listing) – newly proposed

* The identification of each document as being either revised, not revised, or newly proposed is in relation to the interim version adopted in March 2016.

Public Comments

The following comments have been submitted in response to the October 27, 2016 request for public comment. Submitters may review the list below to ensure their submission has been received. If a comment has not been posted within two weeks of submission, please submit it by e-mail to seq_listing_xml@uspto.gov(link sends e-mail).

Please note that the following documents are posted as originally received but may contain artifacts of scanning, OCR, or document format conversion.

A. Intellectual Property Organizations

• American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) (21DEC2016)

B. Government Agencies

C. Academic and Research Institutions

D. Law Firms

E. Companies

• Harbor Consulting IP Services, Inc. (22DEC2016)

F. Individuals

• Gase, John L. (11NOV2016)
• Neifeld, Rick (01DEC2016)