Patentese

In the academic literature references and citations are used virtually interchangeably. An academic’s citation count is simply the number of time her papers have been referenced in other academic papers.

However in the patent world, the concept of a reference and citation are not interchangeable. A reference in a patent is typically added by the patent attorney that is drafting a patent specification, often so as to draw attention to known prior art or to reduce the amount of descriptive text in an application. Sometimes the reference is provided so as to fulfill a duty of disclosure in relation to the known prior art.

A patent citation is (in the patent attorney industry) construed to mean a document cited by a patent examiner in an examination report during the patent examination process. There are three primary types of patent citations

• X means a reference (patent or otherwise) that is novelty or inventive step (obviousness) destroying, targeted at limiting the scope of the claims of a patent
• Y means a reference a reference (patent or otherwise) that implies the claims of the patent application are construed as obvious when combined with another cited document
• A is background citation (patent or otherwise) only. The A citation is considered by the patent examiner to have no substantive impact on the granting of the patented claims

An Innovation Index should focus on X and Y citations only and ignore A citations, especially since these latter often include academic papers of the inventor where the academic is an inventor (a form of self-citation).

Furthermore, not all patent examiners use A citations. An index using A type citations is arguably an inconsistent duplication of the academic journal type of citation and probably doesn’t really mean anything in the context of measuring innovation.

An academic journal citation that is an X and or Y patent citation can be considered related to innovation because that journal article has posed an obstacle to an individual or an entity attempting to secure inventive rights in the patent examination process.