Patent: how to cite in Vancouver Style?

Create a spot-on reference in Vancouver

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General rules

In accordance with the requirements of Vancouver Style, a bibliographic reference to a patent should include the information on both the authors of the patent (the inventors) and the assignees, with their respective roles stated explicitly, as well as a number of other obligatory elements.

For referencing the print version of a patent, use the following template:

Inventor(s), inventor(s); Assignee(s), assignee. Patent title. Country patent patent number. Date of publication. Number of pages.

For a patent available online, use the following template:

Inventor(s), inventor(s); Assignee(s), assignee. Patent title [Internet]. Country patent patent number. Date of publication [cited date cited]. Number of pages. Available from: URL

N.B. The Number of pages element is optional.

N.B. The role signature ‘assignee’ should be always in the singular form, regardless of the actual number of assignees.

For the principles of giving the names of individual and organisational authors in the Vancouver system, see this article.

Examples in a list of references

Smaller J, inventor; Balboa Manufacturing Company, LLC, assignee. United States patent US 9,126,004 B2. 2017 Apr 6 [cited 2021 Jun 28]. 5 p. Available from: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20170095681A1

Stemniski P, Obert R, Brownhill SL, inventors; Microport Orthopedics Holdings, Inc., assignee. Orthopedic surgical guide [Internet]. United States patent US 10,512,476 B2. 2019 Dec 24 [cited 2021 Jun 28]. 91 p. Available from: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10512476B2

Other citation styles: