In addition to the specification, an applicant must also supply an abstract (PDF 0.01 MB). This is a concise summary of the invention. The abstract should be typed on a separate sheet of A4 paper and must begin with the title of the invention that appears in the specification and the request for grant. It should include the essential features of the invention and should ideally be no longer than 150 words.
The abstract, like the claims, must be filed within 12 months of the application filing date (or priority date where claimed) if it has not been filed with the application. Abstracts are not part of the specification, and are not used to interpret the scope of protection sought. Rather, they provide a technical summary of the invention for archiving and retrieval purposes, thus assisting third parties in deciding whether the application as a whole might be of interest.