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The European Patent Office is learning from past mistakes and testing its new
biotech software on volunteers before releasing it. The EPO and US Patent and
Trademark Office require any application containing a sequence of more than ten
nucleotides or four amino acids to be accompanied by a floppy disc containing
the sequence. The EPO wrote its own software for describing sequences, called
Patentin, but drug company Zeneca discovered a glitch in it. The EPO fixed the
bug and went on to develop a Windows version. Trial users are now being asked to
report any bugs.