In law, an abstract is a brief statement that contains the main information of a long legal document or of several related legal papers.
The abstract title, used in real estate transactions, is the more common form of abstract. An abstract title lists all the owners of a piece of land, a house, or a building before it came into possession of the present owner. The abstract also records all deeds, wills, mortgages, and other documents that affect ownership of the property. An abstract describes a chain of transfers from owner to owner and any agreements by former owners that are binding on later owners.
In the context of patent law and specifically in prior art searches, searching through abstracts is a common way to find relevant prior art document to question for novelty or inventive step (or non-obviousness in United States patent law) of an invention. Under United States patent law, the abstract may be called "Abstract of the Disclosure".