An abbreviation or code that names a country. This is information that can be used to identify a country that granted a patent or to provide a machine-comparable form of the name of a country as an addition to the content of the <country> element.
Best Practice: Although this attribute is optional and open to any value, for best practice, the country code should be provided whenever it is known, and the ISO 3166-1 2-letter alphabetic codes should be used, for example:
|
US |
United States |
|
GB |
United Kingdom |
|
CA |
Canada |
On the element <country>, archives and publishers can use this attribute to regularize the input for searching without altering the element content, for example, placing a country code in the attribute when the <country> element content is fully spelled out or uses a non-standard country abbreviation.
| Value | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Text, numbers, or special characters | An abbreviation for a country, typically using the ISO-3166-1 two--letter alphabetic codes, for example, “ US ” for the United States of America |
| Restriction: This attribute may be specified if the element is used. | |