Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
3.2.1.1 Structure of the Patent
Patents mainly consist of four sections:
1. first page (bibliographic data and abstract of the invention);
2. description;
3. claims;
4. drawings (optional).
The title is usually written in a very general way (sometimes even too much so: for
example, “Method” can be found in databases in as many as 100,000 occurrences).
If sufficiently descriptive, the title, should help in the classification and in the
state of the art (
prior art
) search.
Instead the abstract should enable the comprehension of the main features of
the invention, but usually simply reports the main claim (and possibly a drawing).
Box 1 Example of abstract (PCT patent application No. WO 2006/106429)
Method for the deposition of steel on at least one surface portion of a nitride
metallic element comprising a phase (a) releasing nitrogen from at least one
surface portion of said nitride metallic element and a phase (b) depositing at
least one layer of molten metal on at least one surface portion of the nitride
metallic element.
The description is structurally divided into several sections:
1. state of the art (where the problems encountered in the prior art are emphasized
and the technical problem solved by the invention is presented);
2. summary (differing from the abstract appearing on the first page of the patent
application) of the advantages of the invention over both scientific and patent
prior art;
3. description of the drawings (optional—if drawings are reported in the patent
application);
4. detailed description;
5. examples.
The description of the invention must contain all the necessary knowledge so that
a person skilled in the art may carry out or reproduce the invention. The informa-
tion that is part of the common general knowledge of a person skilled in the art is
omitted.
The description (and possibly the drawings) are used to allow a better inter-
pretation of the patent, but cannot be used to expand the scope of protection. The
description ends with one or more claims.
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