July 1, 2022
On July 1, WIPO Standard ST.26 for sequence listings came into force. All sequence listings filed at national, regional or international patent Offices from this date must comply with WIPO ST.26 format.
WIPO Standard ST.26 was first proposed by the European Patent Office in 2010, and in 2017 all WIPO Member States agreed to implement this Standard on the same date globally, the so called "big-bang" implementation date. Last year a 6-month delay was approved by the WIPO General Assembly to ensure that Offices were appropriately prepared for the transition from ST.25 to ST.26, moving the transition date to July 1, 2022.
WIPO has coordinated with patent Offices around the world to not only produce this international Standard, which defines how to present DNA, RNA and amino acid content in a patent application in XML format, but also the WIPO Sequence software tool to support patent applicants to produce sequence listings compliant with WIPO ST.26. This marks a significant accomplishment for the international patent community.
Version 2.1.0 of WIPO Sequence was made available to users on the WIPO website last week. All users are encouraged to update to the latest version of the software. Version 2.1.0 is the fourth stable release, which has been provided to the public as the culmination of approximately four years of development by WIPO in collaboration with its Member States.
WIPO will continue to collect user feedback and update WIPO Sequence as needed for the duration of its lifecycle. Feedback should be sent to WIPO via the contact us form. We also encourage users of the tool to subscribe to our mailing list, as we will be providing important announcements to our users via this list. Finally, should you have questions regarding the content of the Standard or use of WIPO Sequence, please visit our WIPO Sequence and ST.26 knowledge base.
WIPO would like to acknowledge the efforts of Member States both in collaborating to produce the international Standard, WIPO ST.26, and also in providing the requirements for and testing of WIPO Sequence.