Origin of citations in European Patent Office

Whenever you'd need to understand who introduces a citation to a patent in PATSTAT, you may look at  table TLS212_citation, where you may find the field CITN_ORIGIN.

The content of such field may be any of these


0 - SEA- citations introduced during search
1 - APP- citations introduced by the applicant
2 - EXA- citations introduced during examination
3 - OPP - citations introduced during opposition
4 - 115- citations introduced according to Art 115 EPC
5,6 not public



Let's see the content of this field in EPO patents (count made on PATSTAT 10/2009 grouping by publication numbers)

ORIGIN        COUNT OF CITATIONS

0                    22985072

1                     6175203

2                      178744

3                       15839

4                       13533

While in in USPTO patents..
(count made with same criteria as above)

ORIGIN        COUNT OF CITATIONS
0              37425072 
1              15534910

The higher number of applicant introduced citations is due to the "duty of candor" rule which imposes the disclosure of all prior art.