Format of a Patent

Volume 37 of the Code of Federal Regulations (37 CFR) stipulate the elements that must appear in a patent application, together with the order of those elements (Gordon and Cookfair, p. 49). These elements include:

Title of the invention Cross references to related applications (if any) Background of the invention
- Field of the invention
- Description of related art
Summary of the invention Brief description of drawings Description of the preferred embodiment (i.e., the detailed description of the invention) Claims
Abstract of the disclosure (i.e., the "abstract should be such as to enable the reader to ascertain the character of the subject matter covred by the technical disclosure and should include what is new in the art to which the invention pertains") (Gordon and Cookfair, p. 53).

The final form of the patent thus consists of fields of data. In a patent database, each of these fields is searchable. Accordingly, as an aid to advanced searching, it is important to be aware of each of these fields.

These fields include:

Abstract	Inventor City
Application Date	Inventor Country
Application Serial Number	Inventor Name
Application Type	Inventor State
Assignee City	Issue Date
Assignee Country	Other References
Assignee Name	Parent Case Information
Assignee State	Parent Case Information
Assistant Examiner	Patent Number
Attorney or Agent	Patent Type
Claims	PCT Information
Description/Specification	Primary Examiner
Foreign Priority	Reissue Date
Foreign References	Title
Government Interest	Related US Application Data
International Classification	Current US Classification
US References

For U.S. Patents, each of these fields is defined at the USPTO website.

NEXT >