MLA 9th edition
How to cite a patent in MLA 9th edition
Patents use official patent office country codes, filing vs issue dates, and unique patent numbers.
THE FORMAT
A patent in MLA, at a glance
Inventor Last, First. Title of Invention. Patent Office, patent no. x,xxx,xxx, Year.
Holbrook, Arthur. Automated Document Binding System and Rotary Cutter. United States Patent and Trademark Office, patent no. 9,845,112, 2021.
(Holbrook)
In prose: Holbrook patented the rotary cutter assembly.
Copyeditor formats APA, MLA, Chicago and IEEE automatically — cite a source once and the works cited builds itself. See how citations work .
BEFORE YOU FORMAT
What MLA needs from a patent
Elements to collect
- Inventor or inventors
- Year of patent issue
- Title of the invention
- Patent office (e.g., US Patent Office, European Patent Office)
- Patent number (e.g., U.S. Patent No. 10,945,678)
- URL or database source
Rules specific to this entry
- Patent numbers are specified lowercased as "patent no." in MLA.
Building the entry, step by step
Collect the details
Before you format anything, gather every element MLA needs for a patent: Inventor or inventors; Year of patent issue; Title of the invention; Patent office (e.g., US Patent Office, European Patent Office).
Build the works cited entry
Arrange those details in the MLA order: Inventor Last, First. Title of Invention. Patent Office, patent no. x,xxx,xxx, Year.
Add the in-text citation
In the body of your paper, cite it as (Holbrook) — or work the same reference into your sentence as Holbrook patented the rotary cutter assembly..
Check it against the exceptions
Patent numbers are specified lowercased as "patent no." in MLA.
MLA RULES
The conventions behind every MLA entry
MLA Handbook (9th ed.) is the authority. Where a journal or department publishes its own house rules, those win — check your submission guidelines before the works cited is final.
The rules that apply across every source — author order, capitalization, how the works cited is sorted, and where MLA entries most often go wrong — are collected on the MLA 9th edition guide.
The same patent in another style
Switching styles late in a draft is normal. Here is the same source formatted five other ways.
Questions about MLA and patents
What if the patent has no author?
Move the title into the author position and alphabetize by the first significant word of that title — ignoring an initial “A”, “An” or “The”. In the text, use a shortened form of the title where the author name would go.
What do I need before I can cite a patent?
Inventor or inventors, Year of patent issue, Title of the invention, and the rest of the elements listed above. Patents use official patent office country codes, filing vs issue dates, and unique patent numbers.
Is there anything unusual about a patent in MLA?
Patent numbers are specified lowercased as "patent no." in MLA.
Can I reformat this patent in another style later?
By hand, you would retype the entry — the element order, punctuation and italics all differ between styles. In Copyeditor, sources are stored as structured data, so switching between APA, MLA, Chicago and IEEE reformats every citation and the whole reference list at once.
Cite it once
and never reformat it again
Copyeditor keeps sources as structured data, so switching between APA, MLA, Chicago and IEEE reformats every citation and the whole works cited at once.
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