Abstract:

In the current research, patent citations include citations by patent inventor and patent examiner. They are usually analyzed together as the statistical data during patent citation analysis. But recent researches found that examiners played a significant role in identifying. This behavior may have great impact on the underlying assumptions of traditional patent citations. The paper analyzes the differences between citations by patent inventor and patent examiner and preferences of examiners’, and validates the importance and practicability of analysis of citations by patent examiners’ through related literatures at home and aboard, and finally gives an answer about whether the examiner’s citations sould be removed from the patent citations or not.

Key words: Examiner’s citations, Patent citation analysis, Noise