Table TLS212 in Patstat includes a filed named CITN_GENER_AUTH that is ment to contain, for those offices who have no examiners, the reference to the authority who genereate the citation.
Patstat data handbook describes it in this way:
Name: Identification of International Search Authority (ISA) for PCT search reports (incl. supplementary search reports)
Also Known As: n/a
Description: Country code identifying the patent authority performing the International Search Report.
DOCDB-XML contains the generating authority for examiner citations in WO publications. This field in DOCDB will be better populated using the data file provided by WIPO and shown in the usage example above. These fields will be loaded into column CITN_GENER_AUTH in PATSTAT table TLS212_CITATION.
The column CITN_GENER_AUTH will not be populated for other citations, only ISA ones.
If a WO publication has no citations by examiners, then the ISA will not be traceable. This is not a problem, as it only affects a small percentage of the total.
In reality , if we run a count of distinct CITN_GENER_AUTH over all patent origins we find:
Patstat data handbook describes it in this way:
Name: Identification of International Search Authority (ISA) for PCT search reports (incl. supplementary search reports)
Also Known As: n/a
Description: Country code identifying the patent authority performing the International Search Report.
DOCDB-XML contains the generating authority for examiner citations in WO publications. This field in DOCDB will be better populated using the data file provided by WIPO and shown in the usage example above. These fields will be loaded into column CITN_GENER_AUTH in PATSTAT table TLS212_CITATION.
The column CITN_GENER_AUTH will not be populated for other citations, only ISA ones.
If a WO publication has no citations by examiners, then the ISA will not be traceable. This is not a problem, as it only affects a small percentage of the total.
In reality , if we run a count of distinct CITN_GENER_AUTH over all patent origins we find:
| APL | 1 |
| APP | 1 |
| CH2 | 1 |
| EXA | 1 |
| FOP | 1 |
| ISR | 19 |
| OPP | 1 |
| PRS | 1 |
| SEA | 20 |
| SUP | 3 |
| TPO | 1 |
Thus also SEA origin can have multiple generating autorities (for WO only)
| SEA | 'WO' | 'AT' | 40305 |
| SEA | 'WO' | 'AU' | 226899 |
| SEA | 'WO' | 'BR' | 7803 |
| SEA | 'WO' | 'CA' | 68975 |
| SEA | 'WO' | 'CN' | 336595 |
| SEA | 'WO' | 'EG' | 25 |
| SEA | 'WO' | 'EP' | 7042821 |
| SEA | 'WO' | 'ES' | 57180 |
| SEA | 'WO' | 'FI' | 21923 |
| SEA | 'WO' | 'IL' | 4657 |
| SEA | 'WO' | 'IN' | 344 |
| SEA | 'WO' | 'JP' | 1453032 |
| SEA | 'WO' | 'KR' | 551079 |
| SEA | 'WO' | 'RU' | 65639 |
| SEA | 'WO' | 'SE' | 315066 |
| SEA | 'WO' | 'SU' | 6100 |
| SEA | 'WO' | 'US' | 1629423 |
| SEA | 'WO' | 'XN' | 4336 |
So the field is meaningless for all but WO, where it contains both for IPR and SEA origin, data.
it is also worthy recall all citation origins here:
APP citations introduced by the applicant
SEA citations introduced during search (from Search Report)
ISR citations from the International Search Report
SUP citations from the Supplementary Search Report
PRS "PRe-Search" citations (available before official publication)
EXA citations introduced during examination
OPP citations introduced during opposition (citations by opponent published with a European Patent Specification (EP-B2))
APL citations introduced when filed for appeal by applicant / proprietor / patentee
FOP citations introduced when filed opposition by any third party after the publication of a European Patent Specification (EP- B1)
TPO citations introduced because of Third Party Observations (Art 115 EPC)
CH2 citations introduced during the Chapter 2 phase of the PCT
