The Budapest Treaty was adopted in 1977 and governs patent deposit processes involving microorganisms. When an invention involves a microorganism or the use of a specific microorganism, a copy of the microorganism must be deposit in a specialized institute. In order to eliminate the need to deposit the microorganism covered by the patent in each country where patent protection is requested, the Treaty provides that the deposit of a microorganism in any “International Depositary Authority (IDA)” is equally accepted for the purposes of patent proceedings by the national patent offices of all Contracting States and by any regional patent office.

The DBVPG Collection is an IDA as defined by the Budapest Treaty (at the moment there are 48 IDAs in the world and only 3 in Italy, the DBVPG Collection is the only one in Italy that accepts yeasts – https: // www.wipo.int/budapest/en/idadb/). Within this framework, DBVPG can accept the deposit of yeast strains (with the exception of those belonging to risk groups 3 and 4) for patent purposes. Deposit in the DBVPG Collection meets the requirements of the Budapest Treaty: each strain deposited in an IDA meets the requirements of both the patent offices of all the states adhering to the Treaty, and many of the relevant international organizations, including the European Patent Office (EPO).

More details on the procedures for depositing patented strains are reported on the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) website under the title: “Guide to the deposit of microorganisms under the Budapest Treaty“.

Please, follow the instructions below to deposit one or more yeast or yeast-like organism/s as patent deposit:

1. fill the Patent Form; at the end of the filling work, the form will be automatically sent to the curator of the DBVPG Collection who will carefully evaluate the request;
2. download the newly completed Patent Form in pdf format;
3. wait for the authorisation to the deposit which will be sent to the applicant by the curator of the DBVPG Collection, by email, after checking the Patent Form;
4. in case of acceptance of the deposit by the curator, sign the Patent Form downloaded at point 2.
5. send the signed Patent Form and the strain/s to be deposited, to the DBVPG Collection at the following address:
   Industrial Yeasts Collection DBVPG
   Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences
   University of Perugia
   Borgo XX Giugno, 74
   I-06121 Perugia, Italy

Patent Form

The strains to be deposited must be sent in the form of fresh culture in exponential growth and in agar medium (possibly in a tube). Please pay the necessary attention in the construction of the shipping envelope, in order to ensure the arrival of the culture/s in safe conditions.

After the ordinary quality controls (viability and purity tests), an individual DBVPG number will be assigned to each strain characterized by a number followed by the letters P, to distinguish them from the numbers of the strains present in the Public Collection. A certificate of deposit will be sent to the depositor which guarantee the deposit 30 years.

Please note that: (i) the storage time is at least 30 years; (ii) the DBVPG Collection will keep the details of the deposit and the nature of the material deposited strictly confidential; (iii) all material and information are treated strictly confidential according to the rules of the Budapest Treaty.