Manual of Patent Office Practice

Chapter 8
Abstracts

8.01
Abstracts

Subsection 27(2) of the Patent Act provides the authority for the requirements of a patent application. An abstract is not a requirement for a filing date. An application, however, must contain an abstract in order to be complete (paragraph 94(1)(b) of the Patent Rules).

Section 79 of the Patent Rules sets forth the required form and content of the abstract as follows:

1. contain a concise summary of the matter contained in the application and, where applicable, the chemical formula that, among all the formulae included in the application, best characterizes the invention;
   
   
2. specify the technical field to which the invention relates;
   
   
3. be drafted in a way that allows the clear understanding of the technical problem, the gist of the solution of that problem through the invention, and the principal use or uses of the invention;
   
   
4. be so drafted that it can efficiently serve as a scanning tool for purposes of searching in the particular art; and
   
   
5. shall not contain more than 150 words.

Section 72 of the Patent Rules specifies that the abstract should be provided on a page separate from the description. For clarity, it should have a separate heading, such as, "Abstract of the Specification". Since the abstract will be used as a search tool in the Patent Office's Techsource database, the text should avoid patent jargon so that it may be readily understood by technicians and scientists and other persons who are interested in obtaining information about opened patent applications and issued patents. It should provide a means for quickly determining the nature of the description so that the reader can decide whether a complete copy of the specification would be useful.

8.02
Reference characters in abstracts

Each main technical feature mentioned in the abstract and illustrated by a drawing in the application may be followed by a reference character referred to in a drawing, placed between parentheses (subsection 79(7) of the Patent Rules).

8.03
Examination of abstracts

Abstracts are subject to examination in respect to their conformance with section 79 of the Patent Rules.

8.04
Applications ready for allowance

When an application is allowable, except for the abstract, the examiner requisitions an amendment. The requisition notifies the applicant that the form of the abstract is the sole impediment to the prompt allowance of the application and that amendment to comply with section 79 of the Patent Rules is requisitioned within the prescribed time limit. Failure to respond will result in abandonment of the application.

8.05
Examples of abstracts

The following examples illustrate what are considered to be suitable abstracts.

1. A heart valve with an annular valve body defining an orifice and having a plurality of struts forming a pair of cages on opposite sides of the orifice. A spherical closure member is captively held within the cages and moved by blood flow between open and closed positions in check valve fashion. A slight leak or backflow is provided in the closed position by making the orifice slightly larger than the closure member. Blood flow is maximized in the open position of the valve by providing a convex profile on the orifice-defining surfaces of the body. An annular rib is formed in a channel around the periphery of the valve body to anchor a suture ring used to secure the valve within the heart.
   
   
2. A method comprising the use of heat to seal overlapping closure panels of a folding box made from paperboard having an extremely thin coating of moisture-proofing thermo-plastic material on opposite surfaces. Heated air is directed at the surfaces to be bonded, the temperature of the air at the point of impact on the surfaces being above the char point of the board. The boxes are moved so quickly through the air stream that the coating on the side of the panels not directly exposed to the hot air remains substantially non-tacky. A bond is formed almost immediately after heating. Under such conditions the heat applied to soften the thermo-plastic coating is dissipated after completion of the bond by absorption into the board itself, which acts as a heat sink, without the need for cooling devices.
   
   
3. Amides are produced by reacting an ester of a carboxylic acid with an amine, using as catalyst an alkoxide of an alkali metal. The ester is first heated to at least 75^oC. under a pressure of no more than 500 mm. of mercury to remove moisture and acid gases which prevent the reaction, and then converted to an amide without further heating.
   
   
4. Process for the production of semiconductor devices, wherein a silicon oxide film is formed on a surface of a semiconductor substrate, followed by deposition of a layer of lead on the film. This combination is then heated at 500-700^oC. for at least 10 minutes in an oxidizing atmosphere, whereby a passivating film forms, consisting essentially of silicon oxide and lead oxide. The temperatures employed are substantially lower than those conventionally used, and prevent deterioration of the device.
   
   
5. Wool is heated at 50-65^oC. for less than 15 minutes in an aqueous dispersion of 0.1-2 percent calcium hydroxide, washed, and then acidified to render it receptive to dyestuffs without adversely affecting the physical properties of the wool.
   
   
6. Compounds of the formula:

   

   wherein A and Q are hydrogen or alkoxy groups and Y means an alkylene group with 4 to 7 carbon atoms, are useful as plant desiccants.
   
   
7. Method by which a token-passing local-area network having from 2 to 2ⁿ modules is initialized, where n is an integer greater than zero. When connected into the network and energized, each module determines if the network is initialized and, if not, which module is to do so. Each module has a unique n bit network address. The module with the smallest network address energized before the network is initialized is identified and begins the process of initialization by transmitting tokens addressed sequentially to network addresses beginning with the next higher address than its own until a token so transmitted is accepted by an addresses module or until a token has been addressed to all network addresses other than that of the initiating module. After tokens are transmitted to all possible network addresses other than that of the initiating module, the initiating module generates a fault signal to indicate its status.