{"data":{"id":"us/37-cfr-1.77","jurisdiction":"us","citation":"37 CFR 1.77","heading":"Arrangement of application elements.","body":"(a) The elements of the application, if applicable, should appear in the following order:\n(1) Utility application transmittal form.\n(2) Fee transmittal form.\n(3) Application data sheet (see § 1.76).\n(4) Specification.\n(5) Drawings.\n(6) The inventor's oath or declaration.\n(b) The specification should include the following sections in order:\n(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).\n(2) Cross-reference to related applications.\n(3) Statement regarding federally sponsored research or development.\n(4) The names of the parties to a joint research agreement.\n(5) An incorporation by reference statement regarding the material in:\n(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:\n(A) A “Computer Program Listing Appendix” (see § 1.96(c));\n(B) A “Sequence Listing” (see § 1.821(c)); or\n(C) “Large Tables” (see § 1.58(c)).\n(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.\n(6) Statement regarding prior disclosures by the inventor or a joint inventor.\n(7) Background of the invention.\n(8) Brief summary of the invention.\n(9) Brief description of the several views of the drawing.\n(10) Detailed description of the invention.\n(11) A claim or claims.\n(12) Abstract of the disclosure.\n(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)).\n(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.","path":["Title 37—Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights","CHAPTER I—UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE","SUBCHAPTER A—GENERAL","PART 1—RULES OF PRACTICE IN PATENT CASES","Subpart B—National Processing Provisions"],"source_url":"https://www.ecfr.gov/api/versioner/v1/full/2026-08-25/title-37.xml","current_through":"2026-08-25","vintage":"","retrieved_at":"2026-08-27T02:25:45Z","sha256":"9a148fc70a6ab1aea5f449cda143d1a37bd321a53cf238de95c617743a601217","source_id":"us-cfr","stale":true,"prev":"us/37-cfr-1.76","next":"us/37-cfr-1.78"},"notice":"GroundRules: Original legal text. Not legal advice."}