For item (72), every inventor’s name follows a city name and brackets
with a two-letter country code. Does the city and country indicate the
place inventor lives and the country which the city belongs to? Or the
city indicates the place inventor lives and the country indicates
his/her nationality?
INID codeInternationally agreed Numbers for the Identification of bibliographic data in patent, and 72 code stands for inventor name .
According to MPEP 602.08 Inventor and Application Information
MPEP 602.08 (a)II. INVENTOR’S RESIDENCE
Each inventor’s place of residence, that is, the city and either state or foreign country, is required to be included in the oath or declaration in a nonprovisional application for compliance with 37 CFR 1.63 unless it is included in an application data sheet (37 CFR 1.76 ). In the case of an inventor who is in one of the U.S. Armed Services, a statement to that effect is sufficient as to residence. For change of residence, see MPEP § 719.02(b). Each inventor’s residence must be included on the cover sheet for a provisional application unless it is included in an application data sheet (37 CFR 1.76 ).
If only a mailing address where the inventor customarily receives mail is provided, the Office will presume that the inventor’s residence is the city and either state or foreign country of the mailing address. If the inventor lives at a location which different from the inventor’s mailing address, the inventor’s residence (city and either state of foreign country) must be included in the inventor’s oath or declaration or an application data sheet.
For example, Mr. Toyota is a Japanese, employed by a China company. He
is the inventor of an US patent and now lives in San Jose, California.
The assignee of this US patent is the said China company which the
headquarters is in Beijing. What will the item (72) show for this
situation? Will it be (72) Inventors: Toyota, San Jose, CA(US) or (72)
Inventors: Toyota, San Jose, CA(JP) or (72) Inventors: Toyota,
Beijing(JP) or (72) Inventors: Toyota, Beijing(CN)?
The country that appears in (72) according to me is the place of residence i.e., Toyota, San Jose, CA(US)as it is the communication address.