ECACC is a recognised International Depository Authority (IDA) under the Budapest Treaty; An IDA must comply with the requirements of the Budapest Treaty and Regulations
The most important of these are that (i) the IDA will provide services on the same terms to any depositor, (ii) it will accept and store microorganisms deposited with it for the full period specified in the Treaty (at least 30 years or five years after the most recent request for a sample, whichever is later) and (iii) it will release (furnish) samples of deposited micoorganisms only to those entitled to receive them.
Processing patent deposits.
Every deposit is assigned a unique accession number on arrival at ECACC and this is entered on to the patent database.
As such it remains a provisional deposit until the patent has passed QC testing.
Viruses are processed, on behalf of ECACC, by the National Collection of Pathogenic Viruses (NCPV), Health Protection Agency, Porton Down.
QC testing of patent deposits.
Quality Control tests are performed on one of the 12 deposited ampoules.
Upon successful completion of the QC testing the patent depositor is issued with a Certificate of Acceptance confirming the date the deposit was received.
The depositor will be informed if the patent fails the QC tests.
