Template:Cite patent/doc

This template identifies a patent or patent application and links to the patents entry in the espacenet database, and also provides some additional information about the cited patent. Suggested uses are within a pair of tags or as part of a (patent) bibliography at the end of the article.

General patent template for citing patents or patent applications from any country is drawn from the espacenet database. This database is more useful than the USPTO database since it highlights related patents/applications in other countries as well as providing current status information and offers a multi-language interface (English/French/German).

Usage
Copy the below into an article to reference a patent

Parameters
The fields should be filled in with the following information

Explanation of fields:


 * 1) The country must be the two letter country code, eg "US" or "WO" (for international patent applications)
 * 2) Do not put commas in patent number
 * 3) Applications must be identified by publication number
 * 4) Add " | title = title " to display the title. Required
 * 5) Add " | status = application " if the citation is a pending application. Preferably include " | status = patent " if a granted patent.
 * 6) Add " | assign1 = assignee " to display the assignee. Increase the numeral for subsequent assignees. Template currently handles two assignees.
 * 7) Add " | inventor = inventor list to provide the inventor names. Displayed by the template but not used to generate COinS meta data.
 * 8) Add " | invent1 = inventor last name, inventor first name " to provide the inventor name. Displayed by the template and also used to generate COinS meta data. Increase the numeral for subsequent inventors. Template currently handles four inventors.
 * 9) Add " | pubdate = YYYY-MM-DD " to provide the publication date of an application. This is only displayed if "status=application" is included. For granted patents, use gdate. Required if "status=application".
 * 10) Add " | gdate = YYYY-MM-DD " to provide the date of grant of a patent. Is displayed unless "status=application" is included. Preferentially include "status=patent" to confirm that the patent is granted, but this is not required. Required unless "status=application".
 * 11) Add " | pridate = YYYY-MM-DD " to provide the (earliest) priority date. Not displayed, but could be useful to include for future reference. Including multiple priorities unnecessarily complicated.
 * 12) Add " | fdate = YYYY-MM-DD " to provide the filing date. Not displayed, but used to generate COinS meta data and may prove useful in future.
 * 13) Add " |class=ECLA classification " to provide the ECLA classification. Not displayed, but could be useful to include for future reference. Might be possible to automatically link to the relevant classification in future, but urls are complex.

Details
The "country" parameter must be a two letter country code without periods (eg US or EP, not U.S. or USA or E.P.)

The number parameter must be the patent number or patent application publication number without any intervening commas (eg 2135432, not 2,135,432). You may need to experiment with the precise form for published US patent applications or PCT applications, which are slightly unusual. Help for getting the right number format can be found here.

Add "|status=application" (without quotes) if you are citing a patent application rather than a patent. Patent applications must be referred to by publication number, not application number.

One (or both) of the publication date or the grant date must be included, as must the title.

Examples
To cite WIPO (aka PCT) patent application WO 2005/083605 A1, use: Results in:

To cite US patent 7,143,445, use: Results in:

To cite US patent 7,143,445, published 2006-11-28, use: Results in:

To cite US patent application 2006265789 use: Results in:

To cite European patent application 1727416, use: Results in: