Talk:Petri Penta

Illustrations from patents

I like the figures from the Japanese Patent. I have wanted to use pictures from (mostly German, British or American) patents before now, but have never been sure what the image rights are for these. I had a dig around, but failed to find out what the situation is in Japan. So, rather than have pictures with no rights template attached, I have added 'fair use' to the figures here. I did establish that using the text and figures in US Patents is not a problem: see the US Patent and Trademark Office 'Editorial Standards' page. Wikipedia has a rights template for this: here (I know WP practice isn't necessarily a model for ours). WP also has a more general (rights template for any patent) which did say that 'in most countries', the content of patents is available for free use; now it only says that this is true in Sweden and the US, and is likely to be so in other countries. It seems that at least somebody at WP tried and failed to nail the exact situation down. I wonder if we need a separate rights template for US Patents, or can we just use 'public domain'? I note that WP also has one called PD-because allowing a reason for the assertion of public domain to be entered for each case. --Dustin McAmera (talk) 07:41, 29 August 2012 (PDT)