37 CFR 1.77: Arrangement of application elements.

(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:

(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:

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

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

(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.