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Some notes:

  • These slides are intended to illustrate the parts of historic patents relevant for entering metadata in The Portal to Texas History
  • This is not an exhaustive list of variations in patents and is meant to be used in conjunction with the metadata guidelines (https://library.unt.edu/metadata/guides/patent.html)
  • Links are included to the full records for the patent images used as examples
  • Completed records in the Texas Patent Collection may be viewed at: https://texashistory.unt.edu/explore/collections/TXPT/

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Statement for creator info

Creation & Acceptance Date

Main Title

Submission Date

Government Number (Identifier)

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Illustration witnesses

Printer

Text witnesses

Inventor

Note: witnesses are always labeled

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Full name of inventor

Place name (city and county)

Brief description (often) of what the patent is & what is significant -- this varies, so read carefully

Line numbers

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Pagination: 2 sheets, 2 p.

Pagination: [1], 2 p.

Pagination on both illustrations & text

Pagination on text only

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Pagination: [2] p.

No pagination on text or illustration

(generally only applies when there is 1 illustration page and 1 text page)

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No witnesses or printer:

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If you have difficulty determining the inventor’s surname, it is often the part spelled out on the illustration pages.

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The “assignors” are the inventors (creators) who hold the rights to the patent

Rights are “assigned to” the assignee (contributor), which may be person(s) or an organization

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Contributors with multiple roles (reminder: names are only listed once per record)

Witness for both text & illustration

Assignee & witness

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Inventor (creator)

Assignee (contributor)

This just means that the inventor is retaining some rights; adding the statement is sufficient clarification. Names cannot be added more than once per record.