Copyrights and patents are two distinct types of intellectual property rights. Though copyrights and patents provide different types of IP protection, the two can intersect during patent prosecution. For example, an applicant may need to cite references to the USPTO in order to comply with the duty of disclosure. Such references may include U.S. or foreign patents and published patent applications, as well as publications, which are called non-patent literature (NPL) documents. NPL documents can be journal or magazine articles, technical reports, industry standards, dissertations or theses, product inserts, books, conference posters, and anything else that is not a patent or published patent application.
