In
law, an abstract is a brief statement that contains the most important points of a long
legal document or of several related legal papers.
Types of legislation
The abstract of title, used in
real estate transactions, is the more common form of abstract. An abstract of 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
Ownership is the state or fact of legal possession and control over property, which may be any asset, tangible or intangible. Ownership can involve multiple rights, collectively referred to as '' title'', which may be separated and held by dif ...
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
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...
law and specifically in
prior art searches, searching through abstracts is a common way to find relevant prior art document to question to
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".
[37 CFRbr>1.72 – Title and abstract]
References
External links
* , 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
{{DEFAULTSORT:Abstract (Law)
Legal research