September 30, 2015
The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) now allows the submission of sequence listings in electronic format.
In Memorandum Circular No. 15-003 (Circular) dated September 8, 2015, the IPOPHL issued guidelines for the submission of the sequence listing in electronic format through CD/DVD storage media for Inventions/utility model applications.
The Circular requires that the electronic copy of the sequence listing must be in the required PDF OCR (Portable Document Format with Optical Character Recognition) format, which must be stored in a single CD/DVD storage media. The applicant is given two (2) months from mailing date to submit a copy of the sequence listing in the prescribed PDF OCR format if the electronic copy submitted failed to comply with the prescribed format. Otherwise, the applicant shall not be entitled to the reduced fees imposed on sequence listings filed in the PDF OCR format.
Likewise, Circular No. 2015-0003 prescribes the contents/information required for new invention/utility model applications and response /communications to the IPOPHL, and the computation scheme in relation to the said sequence listings.
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