biblatex/biber patent citation support (based on zotero+bbl output)

Question

I have a few questions on biblatex regarding patent citations which I think has very poor support only; my workflow is as follows:

• search Google patents
• use zotero connector and import patent to zotero
• zotero+betterbiblatex does all the magic
• then I export as .bib to use it in my document

This creates a patent like this:

@patent{abc123,
  title = {This is just an example},
  number = {US1234567A},
  date = {1990-01-01},
  keywords = {biblatex, example},
  holder = {Doe, John and Doe, Jessica}
}

In my document I use the following settings:

\usepackage[maxbibnames=99, sorting=none, backend=biber, style=numeric]{biblatex}

Okay, now my questions:

• there are only patent holders, no authors; in zotero there is no 'authors field' I could use once the type is set to 'patent'. The result is: \citeauthor does not work. I would prefer keeping the type 'patent' in zotero and not switch to misc.
• related issue: when typesetting the bibliography, the patent holders are listed after the title of the patent, not before it as it would be the case for authors, how to fix that?
• generally, I do not like that zotero exports the patents with just one date which happens to be the date the patent was granted; I would be much more interested in the filing/priority date (since it is often important when someone first had the idea, I'm not interested in seeing how long it took for the patent office to grant the patent ...). Is it possible to export the filing/priority date instead of the date the patent was granted? Alternatively, have both dates in the output?

Answer 1

Useful patent entries look like this (abridged from biblatex-examples.bib)

@patent{laufenberg,
  author       = {Laufenberg, Xaver and Eynius, Dominique and Suelzle, Helmut
                  and Usbeck, Stephan and Spaeth, Matthias and Neuser-Hoffmann,
                  Miriam and Myrzik, Christian and Schmid, Manfred and Nietfeld,
                  Franz and Thiel, Alexander and Braun, Harald and Ebner,
                  Norbert},
  title        = {Elektrische Einrichtung und Betriebsverfahren},
  number       = 1700367,
  date         = {2006-09-13},
  holder       = {{Robert Bosch GmbH} and {Daimler Chrysler AG} and {Bayerische
                  Motoren Werke AG}},
  type         = {patenteu},
  url          = {http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?IDX=EP1700367},
}

@patent{sorace,
  author       = {Sorace, Ronald E. and Reinhardt, Victor S. and Vaughn, Steven
                  A.},
  title        = {High-Speed Digital-to-{RF} Converter},
  number       = 5668842,
  date         = {1997-09-16},
  holder       = {{Hughes Aircraft Company}},
  type         = {patentus},
}

In particular the Inventor (in Zotero's notation) should be exported to author and the Assignee/Holder should be exported to holder only if it does not coincide with the author list.

Furthermore a @patent entry should have a type, either the generic type = {patent}, or preferable one of the available types patenteu, patentus, ... In case a non-generic type is used, the number field may contain the patent number without the country prefix.

The location field can and should be used if the (geographic) scope of the patent is different from the scope implied by the type. This is probably rarely the case, certainly for US patents with type = {patentus}, that apply only to the US the location field is omissible.

This are all things that should be fixed on the Zotero side or failing that could be requested as features at least for Better Bib(La)TeX: https://github.com/retorquere/zotero-better-bibtex/issues

edit: Better Bib(La)TeX has implemented the required changes to make @patent more usable (given the limits of Zotero's input format) https://github.com/retorquere/zotero-better-bibtex/issues/1060 in version 5.0.199.

The normal Zotero exporter is also going to be updated in due time (https://github.com/zotero/translators/pull/1742). With a bit of luck future versions will also support inputting holder/Assignee as a name list.

---

The date issue is a bit trickier. biblatex only allows one generic date for @patents and does not specify whether that should be the filing date, priority date or issue date (date granted). Zotero is free to choose which date to export and I certainly won't argue against choosing the issue date.

On the biblatex side it would be possible to declare a new date (prioritydate, filingdate, issuedate, ...) and use that. See Biblatex: Custom date fields and How can I create entirely new data types with BibLaTeX/Biber? for guidance.

On the Zotero side you will have to convince Zotero to export to the new date or to export an existing date to date.

Below you can see how to convince Zotero (with Better Bib(La)TeX) to export the filing date (filingDate) to date. But of course that strategy can be applied ion other cases as well.

For reference you may want to have a look at http://retorque.re/zotero-better-bibtex/scripting/

Go to "Edit > Preferences > Better BibTeX > Advanced" and add the following to the postscript field (simplified thanks to retorquere)

if (Translator.BetterBibLaTeX && item.itemType === 'patent') {
  this.add({ name: 'date', value: item.filingDate, enc: 'date' })
}

Zotero's Better BibLaTeX export should then export the filing date to the date field instead of the issue date.