In law, an abstract is a brief statement that contains the main information of a long legal document or of several related legal papers.

Types of legislation

The abstract title, used in real estate transactions, is the more common form of abstract. An abstract title lists all the owners of a piece of land, a house, or a building before it came into possession of the present owner. The abstract also records all deeds, wills, mortgages, and other documents that affect ownership of the property. An abstract describes a chain of transfers from owner to owner and any agreements by former owners that are binding on later owners.

Patent law

In the context of patent law and specifically in prior art searches, searching through abstracts is a common way to find relevant prior art document to question for novelty or inventive step (or non-obviousness in United States patent law) of an invention. Under United States patent law, the abstract may be called "Abstract of the Disclosure".United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) web site, 608.01(b) Abstract of the Disclosure37 CFR 1.72 – Title and abstract.

References

  • , defining the requirements regarding the abstract in an international application filed under Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT)
  • and (previously ), defining the abstract-related requirements in a European patent application