HISTORY OF THE ARS PATENT CULTURE COLLECTION

In 1949, the United States Patent and Trademark Office implemented its new requirement that cultures be deposited in conjunction with patent applications concerning microbiological inventions. The reasoning was that for chemical, electrical, or mechanical patents, a diagram or formula can sufficiently describe the invention, whereas in a microbiological patent, illustrations and narrative descriptions are generally inadequate to define sufficiently the microorganism used and therefore comply with the requirement for a full and complete disclosure of the invention. The Patent Office initially asked the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) to serve as depository for patent strains but, at that time, the ATCC was not prepared to assume this function. The other major U.S. collection, the ARS Culture Collection, accepted the invitation of the Patent Office and became the first culture collection in the U.S., and apparently in the world, to accession a patent strain. That organism was Streptomyces aureofaciens NRRL 2209, the strain deposited by the American Cyanamid Company for aureomycin production. Shortly thereafter, the American Type Culture Collection also began accepting patent strains.