Template talk:PD-US-patent

Autotranslate

{{Editprotected}} Can you use autotranslate? You can just copy-paste the following code:

{{autotranslate|base=PD-US-patent}}<includeonly>{{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|File|{{{category|[[Category:PD images from US patents|{{PAGENAME}}]]}}} }}</includeonly><noinclude>
{{documentation}}</noinclude>

Thanks! --tacsipacsi (talk) 18:49, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

 Done Thank you −ebraminio^talk 07:32, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Update links to USPTO copyright rules

{{Editprotected}} Please update the links to the US patent copyright rules. The current links are broken. Correct links are below.

37 CFR 1.7(d)

37 CFR 1.84(s) --Nowa (talk) 17:00, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Revert or properly support prior edit on 1989 copyright issues

{{Editprotected}} On 3 February 2013, User:Hydrox made this edit to the template. This edit is not supported by the cited USPTO reference. I would like to request that this edit either be reverted or properly supported. The issues associated with this edit are currently being discussed at Commons:Village_pump/Copyright#Do_US_patents_have_copyright_protection.3F --Nowa (talk) 15:59, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

• Not Done. Republishing a patent by the US Copyright office does not make this a work of the US Fed Gov - any copyright belongs to those that have been granted the patent. --Denniss (talk) 17:36, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Actually, I agree. This discussion was very helpful Commons:Village_pump/Copyright#Do_US_patents_have_copyright_protection.3F--Nowa (talk) 00:45, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I disagree. Please see COM:Village pump/Copyright#Reproductions_of_patent_text_and_illustrations—Catsquisher (talk) 20:22, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Bad citation(s)

This is in line with Nowa's comments above: citation #1 does not (at all) support the sentence it is attached to. The link is broken, but it can easily be viewed via https://archive.org/ and it states (circa 2009):

"Copyright law (17 U.S.C. § 105) states that all materials created by the United States government are in the public domain. However, there are restrictions on use. ... Patents are published as part of the terms of granting the patent to the inventor. Subject to limited exceptions reflected in 37 CFR 1.71(d) & (e) and 1.84(s), the text and drawings of a patent are typically not subject to copyright restrictions. The inventors' right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the United States for a limited time is not compromised by the publication of the description of the invention. In other words, the fact that a patent's description may have been published without copyright restrictions does not give you permission to manufacture or use the invention without permission from the inventor during the active life of the patent."

The document goes on to explain how a patent applicant is responsible for explicitly notating any potentially copyrighted information in a patent, otherwise it is not protected by copyright law.

If you go further back in time a few years (circa 2006) the same document explicitly states: "Patents are published into the public domain as part of the terms of granting the patent to the inventor. As such, they are not subject to copyright restrictions."

Nowhere in this document, is the year 1989 ever mentioned (or any timeframe requirement of any kind, for that matter).

Considering this document is used as the citation for the first sentence of the template, which states:

"In general, the contents of United States patents published before March 1, 1989 are in the public domain."

... I think it's safe to say this citation does not support that sentence, and most likely refutes it instead. Giffyguy (talk) 02:50, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm going to add that I don't think there's anything special about 1989 patents here. The current USPTO page that's relevant is here: [1], which specifically states about copyright:

"Patents are published as part of the terms of granting the patent to the inventor. Subject to limited exceptions reflected in 37 CFR 1.71(d) & (e) and 1.84(s), the text and drawings of a patent are typically not subject to copyright restrictions. The inventors' rights to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the United States for a limited time is not compromised by the publication of the description of the invention. In other words, the fact that a patent's description may have been published without copyright restrictions does not give you permission to manufacture or use the invention without permission from the inventor during the active life of the patent. See MPEP § 600 - 608.01(v) regarding the right to include a copyright or mask work notice in patents."

(1.71d+e is about adding a copyright statement and how it should be presented to present specific elements in an invention disclosure, 1.84s is about copyright/masks on drawings. And that's based on a Oct 2019 update) In otherwords, nothing at the USPTO seems to suggests this 1989 date has any relevance, and the only thing that stops commons from using any patent images is the copyright notice that must be in the patent. --Masem (talk) 03:53, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Removing the 1989 date content

{{edit request}}

There has been some discussions about the "1989" date over the years at: Commons:Village pump/Copyright/Archive/2018/10#Reproductions of patent text and illustrations, #Revert or properly support prior edit on 1989 copyright issues and #Bad citation(s). All those seem to agree there is nothing to support the 1989 date added in 2013, and that indeed US patents are not copyrighted unless a specific request is made by the applicant or its representative to the USPTO, and in those cases a disclaimer will be inserted in the patent to state it is copyrighted. See also the Wikipedia article w:en:Copyright on the content of patents and in the context of patent prosecution#United States (see also what I could gather at: w:en:Talk:Copyright on the content of patents and in the context of patent prosecution#Academic articles and blogs on the topic (USPTO)).

Moreover, the USPTO website states: "Subject to limited exceptions reflected in 37 CFR 1.71(d) & (e) and 1.84(s), the text and drawings of a patent are typically not subject to copyright restrictions" (emphasis added).

As a sidenote, the first link is broken and using bare URLs is not great.

Furthermore, MPEP section 1512 also deals with copyright and patent.

Lastly, I think the MPEP paragraph mentioned on the USPTO website should be added as a ressource. The USPOT erroneously states it is section (v), but it is in fact section (w); the section (v) deals with trademarks and not with patents (maybe it is an old reference that has not been updated). (e) of the same section should also be added as it deals with the exact same details.

Therefore, I make the following edit requests:

1. The first sentence must be changed to: "In general, the contents of United States patents are in the public domain."
2. "and are additionally required to state the following within the body of the application and patent:[2] [3]" should be changed to: "and are additionally required to state the following within the body of the application and patent (cf. 37 CFR 1.71(d) & (e) and 37 CFR 1.84(s), and MPEP § 608.01(e) & (w) and MPEP § 1512):"
3. The following part should be totally removed: "Note: This only applies to images published before March 1, 1989. Patents published after that date are most likely copyrighted, unless in the public domain for another reason, such as {{PD-ineligible}}."

Veverve (talk) 22:02, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

I have updated the English (/en) and Spanish (/es) language templates, but I can't read Arabic and Chinese. This request should stay open until someone can translate Arabic (/ar) and Chinese (/zh) accordingly. --P 1 9 9  ✉ 17:13, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Could you please change "cf." to "see"? It looks as unnecessary legalese and is actually used incorrectly (see the meaning and usage notes in en:cf.). — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 19:17, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Mikhail Ryazanov's edit proposal. Veverve (talk) 20:45, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Change of "cf." to "see" done in English only. --P 1 9 9  ✉ 02:28, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

@P199: to me, the request has been answered.

If you believe the request has been answered, could you please do as Template:Edit request says and [p]lease apply <nowiki> or {{Tl}} to the tag after the request is fulfilled? Veverve (talk) 09:31, 1 April 2024 (UTC)