Template talk:US patent

Technical details and discussion

I just found this:

How can I link to a particular patent?

A special shortened URL format:http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=1,234,567

where the patent number "1,234,567" may be replaced by any valid patent number within the database, has been established to enable users to more easily construct a URL for bookmarking or linking to the full-text of a single granted patent. To simplify this process even further, the patent grant search process has been modified such that when a search results in a single hit, the user is taken directly to the full-text display for that patent, rather than to a hit list containing only the single patent.

- Omegatron 16:40, July 30, 2005 (UTC)

UK Patent Office is better

It's unfortunate, but this template links only to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Many older patents don't have an on-line text abstract, only a scan of the document. The USPTO only offers patent drawings in TIFF format, and then only through a browser plug-in. While there are a number of plug-ins to be found on the Web, so far I haven't discovered any that are free. Moreover, after repeated requests over the last 3-4 years, the USPTO remains stubborn, refusing to provide a simple text hyperlink to the TIFF files so that one might download them to one's hard drive and view them with an external graphic file viewer application, of which there are many.
A better alternative is to go through the UK Patent Office site. One can find U.S. patents there in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format, for which the browser plug-in is free and readily available. Moreover, the UK site has links to patent collections of many nations around the world. --Quicksilver^{T @} 22:30, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

AlternaTIFF is as free as Adobe Reader and works great for me on the US patent site in Firefox. — Omegatron 01:09, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

And their site provides some links to other resources:

Some people have written special utilities for the USPTO site; see PatentMailer or pat2pdf or innoVUE/interneTIFF. There are also services like US Patent Search and GetThePatent. (Please note that we have no affiliation with any of the products or services listed here -- this is not an endorsement.) - [1]

Is there anyway that we could provide a link to one of the PDF services? –70.111.223.241 20:23, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Example

• U.S. Patent 1,234,567 — Somewhat long
• U.S. Patent 1,234,567
• U.S. Patent 1,234,567 — doesn't display image in IE unless there is a characters showing
• U.S. Patent 1,234,567  — uses a  
• U.S. Patent 1,234,567 Template:ClickA— Uses {{ClickA}}, breaks line.
• U.S. Patent 1,234,567 — Uses CSS negative margins to hide the letter M which is 1em.
• U.S. Patent 1,234,567  t — uses negative margins, image floats over link in IE.
• U.S. Patent 1,234,567  — Doesn't work on IE for some weird reason.

Google Patent Search

Google Patent Search was just released, and it serves up the patents as PNG images rather than TIFF, which makes it much easier for those who don't have a browser plugin installed to see them.

I thought about switching the template to point to Google. However, I don't see an easy way to link to the summary page when the patent number has commas in it. Eg. this works, but this doesn't. But the current USPTO link does allow commas in it, so there's a good chance a some/many of uses of this template have commas in them. You can search for {patent 1,234,567}, but it doesn't link to the summary view that way. --Interiot 05:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I thought of linking to Google Patent Search, too, but their images are lower-resolution, which is a problem if there's no accompanying text. — Omegatron 17:04, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Can you first go to a page that lets you choose between the three source databases. We already have that for GPS data. You go to a page and choose between Google, Microsoft or Yahoo maps. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 19:13, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

More like Wikipedia:Book sources... It shouldn't be hard to implement with that already in existence. — Omegatron 06:55, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea, since there are various sites to view patents (output to tiff, pdf, low-res png, etc), none of which is clearly optimal yet. --Interiot 02:07, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I would really like to see a way to link to the Google patent service. They have done a better job of OCRing the database than USPTO and you don't get forced to use the TIFF viewer for patents before 1979.Red phase 14:35, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that we should be linking to USPTO especially in printouts as that more of an authoritative source than Google's Patent search. I've already converted most links to work with the Google's service, I'll go setup that Wikipedia:Template test cases now. —Dispenser 22:38, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I've setup a script on the toolserver which will redirect patents with leading zero or comma to their proper target at Google patents. However, during the testing I discovered one patent [2] that wasn't in Google's database. Anyone care to be bold? —Dispenser 04:51, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Filed as Bugzilla:10866. — Omegatron 23:21, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Editprotected Requests

Downgrade protection. Less than 1,000 transclusions, full protection is unnecessary. --Dispenser 03:59, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I've downgraded to semi. --Ligulem 10:09, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

pat2pdf.org link

Why does this template generate a pat2pdf.org link? That's some random site sucking up revenue with google ads to host public domain material. There are 4000+ of those links in wikipedia probably mostly from this template. I think we should just link to the US goverment site. If we really want to link to pdf's as well, and the govt site doesn't have them (I thought it does), then we should generate them directly on wikimedia servers. 64.160.39.153 04:54, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

The template already links to the the USPTO site, but they have a fee for the PDF convertion[3]. The pat2pdf website works good enough for us now. Maybe in the future someone may write a script to allow us to list all the different US patent websites similar to the Wikipedia:WikiProject Geographical coordinates. —Dispenser 07:12, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Whitespace sensitive

{{US patent | 3156523}} doesn't create the links properly (yields U.S. patent 3,156,523), but {{US patent|3156523}} (yields U.S. patent 3,156,523). Is there any way of changing the template code to avoid this problem? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Itub (talk • contribs)

 Done Plastikspork (talk) 01:18, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Content provider

Why is Google Patents used here and not the official USPTO site? --84.44.177.125 (talk) 19:37, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Most people don't have the plug-in needed to view the TIFF flavor that USPTO.gov uses for drawings in patents. Google, on the other hand, transcodes drawings into a format that shows up in every modern browser, much like Google Books. --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 01:10, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Google "fetches" the patents from the USPTO. It lets you download in PDF format or view on-screen with no special plug-in like "Alternatiff". Google is your friend. --Nukes4Tots (talk) 02:30, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Maybe writing to USPTO and saying them about it("wrong" file type, etc.) would be usefull. Is there anyone willing to do so? :) --87.78.23.227 (talk) 23:35, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

patents not in google's database

maybe the google interface is better, but it doesn't have all the patents. http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=7,414,108 vs. http://www.google.com/patents?vid=7414108   —Chris Capoccia ^T⁄_C 10:00, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

How about an optional 'source' flag, which would default to google? Or does this already exist? Plastikspork (talk) 14:22, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

that would be great.  —Chris Capoccia ^T⁄_C 16:29, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

 Done Plastikspork (talk) 01:17, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

First source should always be the USPTO, it is the official site, authority and get updates first. When you think their page is old school or missing something, write to them and request a change... Google is _not_ the USPTO! --84.44.179.105 (talk) 19:04, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I have also just found that the Google patents does not include all the USPTO patents. Could the template be enhanced to provide both links, the first being USPTO, the second being Google? This would help avoid frustrating editors that receive the "not found" message from Google when the patent exists. 84user (talk) 13:24, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

+1 "official link" and "enhanced markup link" would be a better solution! --84.44.153.128 (talk) 16:00, 6 December 2009 (UTC)