§ 1.77 - Arrangement of application elements.

§ 1.77 Arrangement of application elements.

Cross Reference

Link to an amendment published at 87 FR 30817, May 20, 2022.

(a) The elements of the application, if applicable, should appear in the following order:

(1) Utility application transmittal form.

(2) Fee transmittal form.

(3) Application data sheet (see § 1.76).

(4) Specification.

(5) Drawings.

(6) The inventor's oath or declaration.

(b) The specification should include the following sections in order:

(1) Title of the invention, which may be accompanied by an introductory portion stating the name, citizenship, and residence of the applicant (unless included in the application data sheet).

(2) Cross-reference to related applications.

(3) Statement regarding federally sponsored research or development.

(4) The names of the parties to a joint research agreement.

(5) An incorporation by reference statement regarding the material in the one :

(i) One or more ASCII plain text files, submitted via the USPTO patent electronic filing system or on one or more read-only optical discs (see § 1.52(e)(8)), identifying the names of each file, the date of creation of each file, and the size of each file in bytes, for the following document types:

(

i

A) A “Computer Program Listing Appendix” (see § 1.96(c));

(

ii

B) A “Sequence Listing” (see § 1.821(c)); or

(

iii

C) “Large Tables” (see § 1.58(c)).

(ii) An XML file for a “Sequence Listing XML” (see § 1.831(a)), submitted via the USPTO patent electronic filing system or on one or more read-only optical discs (see § 1.52(e)(8)), identifying the names of each file, the date of creation of each file, and the size of each file in bytes.

(6) Statement regarding prior disclosures by the inventor or a joint inventor.

(7) Background of the invention.

(8) Brief summary of the invention.

(9) Brief description of the several views of the drawing.

(10) Detailed description of the invention.

(11) A claim or claims.

(12) Abstract of the disclosure.

(13) “Sequence Listing,” required by § 1.821(c), that is submitted as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file (as set forth in § 1.821(c)(2)) via the USPTO patent electronic filing system or on physical sheets of paper (as set forth in § 1.821(c)(3)).

(c) The text of the specification sections defined in paragraphs (b)(1) through (b)(12) of this section, if applicable, should be preceded by a section heading in uppercase and without underlining or bold type.

[65 FR 54668, Sept. 8, 2000, as amended at 70 FR 1823, Jan. 11, 2005; 77 FR 48820, Aug. 14, 2012; 78 FR 11055, Feb. 14, 2013; 86 FR 57047, Oct. 14, 2021; 86 FR 73985, Dec. 29, 2021; 87 FR 30817, May 20, 2022]