{{US patent reference|number= |issue-date= |inventor= | title= }}

• number (required) is a patent number, without leading "US" letters, but with leading "D" letter if patent number contains it, and is required.
• issue-date (optional) is the date of issuing (granting).
• inventor (optional) is a name of inventor; it can be a wiki-link, of course.
• title (optional) is the title of the patent.

{{US patent reference
 | number     = 5285709
 | issue-date = February 15, 1994
 | inventor   = John D. Grant
 | title      = Machine head for tuning a stringed instrument, especially a guitar or the like
}}

US patent 5285709, John D. Grant, "Machine head for tuning a stringed instrument, especially a guitar or the like", issued February 15, 1994 

Preferably, after inclusion of this template in "references", one should give less formal and more reader-friendly explanation of what this patent is all about.

This template produces COinS metadata; see COinS in Wikipedia for background information.

Other templates that may be applicable for other uses (i.e. in-line inclusion) include:

• {{Cite patent}}, creates links to US and other patents on the espacenet database
• {{Citeref patent}}, for an inline citations to a patent bibliography
• {{EPO Register}}, to include a link to the European Patent Register entry of a European patent or patent application
• {{Patent}}, a generic template for general use referring to world's patent offices
• {{Ref patent}}, similar to {{US patent reference}}, but using espacenet with more details than {{Cite patent}}
• {{US patent}}, to include a link to a US patent
• {{US patent application}}, to cite a US patent application as a reference in "references" section
• {{US patent reference}}, to cite a US patent as a reference in "references" section
• {{USPTO Application}}
• {{USPTO Patent}}