The Budapest Treaty on the International Recognition of the Deposit of Microorganisms for the Purposes of Patent Procedure, or Budapest Treaty, is an international

treaty A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between actors in international law. It is usually made by and between sovereign states, but can include international organizations An international organization or international o ...

signed in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

, on April 28, 1977. It entered into force on August 19, 1980, and was later amended on September 26, 1980. The treaty is administered by the

World Intellectual Property Organization The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO; french: link=no, Organisation mondiale de la propriété intellectuelle (OMPI)) is one of the list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, 15 specialized agencies of the United Nation ...

(WIPO).

Membership

As of April 2022, 86 countries are party to the Budapest Treaty. The accession to the Treaty is open to States party to the

Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property The Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, signed in Paris, France, on 20 March 1883, was one of the first intellectual property treaties. It established a Union for the protection of industrial property. The convention is c ...

of 1883. The African Regional Industrial Property Organization (ARIPO), the Eurasian Patent Organization (EAPO) and the

European Patent Organisation The European Patent Organisation (sometimes abbreviated EPOrg in order to distinguish it from the European Patent Office, one of the two organs of the organisation) is a public international organisation created in 1977 by its contracting states t ...

(EPO) have filed a declaration of acceptance under Article 9(1)(a)WIPO web site, Budapest Treaty on the International Recognition of the Deposit of Microorganisms for the Purposes of Patent Procedure
Article 9 Intergovernmental Industrial Property Organizations
/ref> of the Treaty.

Content

The treaty allows "deposits of

microorganism A microorganism, or microbe,, ''mikros'', "small") and ''organism'' from the el, ὀργανισμός, ''organismós'', "organism"). It is usually written as a single word but is sometimes hyphenated (''micro-organism''), especially in olde ...

s at an international depositary authority to be recognized for the purposes of

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

procedure".WIPO web site
Summary of the Budapest Treaty on the International Recognition of the Deposit of Microorganisms for the Purposes of Patent Procedure (1977)
retrieved on October 21, 2008 Usually, in order to meet the

legal Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

requirement of

sufficiency of disclosure Sufficiency of disclosure or enablement is a patent law requirement that a patent application disclose a claimed invention in sufficient detail so that the person skilled in the art could carry out that claimed invention. The requirement is fu ...

, patent applications and patents must disclose in their description the subject-matter of the

invention An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an i ...

in a manner sufficiently clear and complete to be carried out by the

person skilled in the art A person having ordinary skill in the art (abbreviated PHOSITA), a person of (ordinary) skill in the art (POSITA or PSITA), a person skilled in the art, a skilled addressee or simply a skilled person is a legal fiction found in many patent laws t ...

(see also:

reduction to practice In United States patent law, the reduction to practice is the step in the formation of an invention beyond the conception thereof. Reduction to practice may be either actual (the invention is actually carried out and is found to work for its intende ...

). When an

involves a microorganism, completely describing said invention in the description to enable third parties to carry it out is usually impossible. This is why, in the particular case of inventions involving microorganisms, a deposit of biological material must be made in a recognised institution. The Budapest Treaty ensures that an applicant, i.e. a person who applies for a patent, needs not to deposit the biological material in all countries where he/she wants to obtain a patent. The applicant needs only to deposit the biological material at one recognised institution, and this deposit will be recognised in all countries party to the Budapest Treaty.

International depositary authority

The deposits are made at an international depositary authority (IDA) in accordance with the rules of the Treaty on or before the filing date of the complete patent application. Article 7 of the Budapest treaty outlines the requirements for a facility to become an International Depositary Authority. As of July 23, 2018, there were 47 IDAs in approximately 25 countries worldwide.

Depositable subject matter

IDA's have accepted deposits for biological materials which do not fall within a literal interpretation of "

". The Treaty does not define what is meant by "

." The range of materials able to be deposited under the Budapest Treaty includes: *cells, for example,

bacteria Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were among ...

fungi A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from ...

, eukaryotic cell lines,

plant spore In biology, a spore is a unit of sexual or asexual reproduction that may be adapted for dispersal and for survival, often for extended periods of time, in unfavourable conditions. Spores form part of the life cycles of many plants, algae, ...

s; *genetic vectors (such as

plasmid A plasmid is a small, extrachromosomal DNA molecule within a cell that is physically separated from chromosomal DNA and can replicate independently. They are most commonly found as small circular, double-stranded DNA molecules in bacteria; how ...

s or

bacteriophage A bacteriophage (), also known informally as a ''phage'' (), is a duplodnaviria virus that infects and replicates within bacteria and archaea. The term was derived from "bacteria" and the Greek φαγεῖν ('), meaning "to devour". Bacteri ...

vectors or viruses) containing a gene or DNA fragments; *organisms used for expression of a gene (making the protein from the DNA). There are many types of expression systems: bacterial; yeast; viral; plant or animal cell cultures; *

yeast Yeasts are eukaryotic, single-celled microorganisms classified as members of the fungus kingdom. The first yeast originated hundreds of millions of years ago, and at least 1,500 species are currently recognized. They are estimated to constitut ...

algae Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular mic ...

protozoa Protozoa (singular: protozoan or protozoon; alternative plural: protozoans) are a group of single-celled eukaryotes, either free-living or parasitic, that feed on organic matter such as other microorganisms or organic tissues and debris. Histo ...

, eukaryotic cells, cell lines,

hybridomas Hybridoma technology is a method for producing large numbers of identical antibodies (also called monoclonal antibodies). This process starts by injecting a mouse (or other mammal) with an antigen that provokes an immune response. A type of whi ...

, viruses, plant tissue cells, spores, and hosts containing materials such as vectors, cell

organelle In cell biology, an organelle is a specialized subunit, usually within a cell, that has a specific function. The name ''organelle'' comes from the idea that these structures are parts of cells, as organs are to the body, hence ''organelle,'' the ...

s, plasmids, DNA, RNA, genes and chromosomes; *purified nucleic acids; or *deposits of materials not readily classifiable as microorganisms, such as "naked" DNA, RNA, or plasmids

References

External links

Budapest Treaty
{{in lang, en in the

WIPO Lex WIPO Lex is an online global database launched in 2010, which provides free public access to intellectual property laws, treaties and judicial decisions from around the world. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) maintains and devel ...

database — official website of

WIPO The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO; french: link=no, Organisation mondiale de la propriété intellectuelle (OMPI)) is one of the 15 specialized agencies of the United Nations (UN). Pursuant to the 1967 Convention Establishin ...

. ** The full text of th
Budapest Treaty on the International Recognition of the Deposit of Micro-organisms for the Purposes of Patent Procedure (as amended on September 26, 1980)
*
Contracting States

The Budapest Treaty and Australian Patents
(

IP Australia IP Australia is an agency of the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science. IP Australia administers intellectual property rights and legislation relating to patents, trade marks, registered designs and plant breeder's rights in Australia. ...