专利审查员引文的特征与价值

Analysis on the Characteristics and Value of Patent Examiner Citations

[目的/意义]专利引文分析方法被广泛运用,但专利审查员引文的价值却常常被低估甚至误读,亟待澄清,这关乎专利文献内在机理的理解与专利文献潜在价值的挖掘。[方法/过程]根据施引主体的不同,专利引文可分为申请人引文和审查员引文两类。比较表明,这两类引文有明显的区别特征。与申请人引文相比,专利审查员引文具有三大区别特征:一是施引专利与被引文献之间具有确定的技术相关性,二是格式规范、高度标准化,三是可获得性与数量优势明显。[结果/结论]专利审查员引文的区别特征决定了其具有诉讼证据价值、知识交流和专利影响力的测量工具价值以及企业竞争情报价值。大数据技术的应用有助于专利审查员引文的价值实现,但其价值的深度挖掘还有待审查数据的充分公开、标引的规范和工具的优化。

[ Purpose/significance ] Patent citation analysis methods are widely used, but the value of patent examin- er citations is often underestimated or even misunderstood, which needs to be clarified, for the reason that it is related to the understanding of the internal mechanism and potential value of patent literature. [ Method/process] According to the subject of citations, patent citations inelude patent examiner citations and applicant citations. The comparison shows that these two types of patent citations have obvious differences. Compared with applicant citations, examiner citations have three main characteristies：fi^tly,assured technical correlation between citing patent and cited literature; secondly, fi）rmat specification and high degree of standardization; thirdly, advantages in availability and quantity. [ Result/conclusion] The value of examiner citations can be realized as a sort of litigation evidence, a measuring tool for knowledge flow and pa- tent impact, or enteq3rise competitive intelligence. Application of big data technology will be helpful to the realization of the value of examiner c.itations. The fully mining of the value of examiner citations depends on sufficient disclosure of data from the review process, further standardization of patent citations and optimization of patent citation analysis tools.