Template talk:PD-US-patent

Looking for the right copyright tag?

See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for a full list of tags available. The following are applicable within the United States. {{Wikipedia:File copyright tags/USA}}

Copyright

To quote:

"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. 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 is in the public domain does not give you permission to manufacture or use the invention without permission from the inventor during the active life of the patent." — USPTO.

— Matt Crypto 11:13, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

U.S. patent law has two things to say about copyright and patent illustrations.

1. Applications are specifically allowed to claim copyright in patent drawings.
2. If copyright is claimed, the following permission must also be given:

"A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to (copyright or mask work) protection. The (copyright or mask work) owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by any­one of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all (copyright or mask work) rights whatsoever." [1]

In other words, verbatim copies of patent illustrations are fine, derivatives would be more questionable. iMeowbot~Mw 03:41, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Now we need another template, or a parameter, to indicate lack of copyright verified.

The only template we have for US patents is this one. A bot (or bot-like editor) has been placing this template on many images previously considered publications of the U.S. Government and uncopyrightable. This may make them subject to deletion by some later bot (or bot-like editor). We need a way to specify that the patent has been checked and found to be clear of copyright language. --John Nagle (talk) 04:21, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Coincidentally, I just copied Template:Tl from Commons for that very reason before checking this talk page for any relevant discussion. Anomie⚔ 13:06, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

That Template is absolutely terrible and opens the door for uninformed abuse. Really it's not even a valid concept. All published works are copyright the moment they are published (even public domain works!). Public domain indicates the reproduction rights. Including the work in a Patent does not void the copyright. Please see the quote at the top of this discussion page as it is clear and concise in it's wording. BcRIPster (talk) 20:27, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

BcRIPster, I do not believe that you are correct. Please see c:COM:Village pump/Copyright#Reproductions_of_patent_text_and_illustrations —Catsquisher (talk) 19:43, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Note on discrepancy with Commons policy

Commons policy is to delete images from US patents published after March 1, 1989. See c:Commons:Deletion requests/Template:PD-US-patent-no notice, c:Template talk:PD-US-patent, and c:Template talk:PD-US-patent-no notice and examples 1, 2, 3, 4 (though with exceptions 1). Meanwhile, policy here is generally to treat such images as public domain (see the text of this template and Template:PD-US-patent-no notice and discussions 1, 2) though with exceptions (1).

I suggest that, as long as the discrepancy exists, images from patents published after March 1, 1989 should be tagged Template:Tl. Wikiacc (¶) 01:02, 9 June 2020 (UTC)