The biotechnology chapter focuses on the rules for biological deposits and sequences. Due to the nature of biological based inventions, it may not always be sufficient for the applicant to list the steps necessary to create the product. In these cases, the PTO will request that a "deposit" is made so that members of the public desiring to use the particular product will have access to it. An example of this would be a specific tissue culture cell type. In other cases, when the invention seeking to be patented involves a nucleotide or amino acid sequence, that sequence must be listed in the patent.

This Chapter is not usually tested at all on the exam. However, it is possible to see a question related to biotechnology patents on the exam.

2402 Deposit Rules
where the invention involves a biological material and words alone cannot sufficiently describe how to make and use the invention in a reproducible manner, access to the biological material may be necessary for the satisfaction of the statutory requirements for patentability under 35 U.S.C. 112

2420 The requirements for patent applications containing nucleotide sequence and/or amino acid sequence disclosures - the sequence rules

there is a standardized format for the descriptions of nucleotide and amino acid sequence data submitted as a part of patent applications

one application may contain more than one nucleotide or amino acid sequence within it -the required submission of that data must be in computer readable form