Hello once again,
Thanks for all who answered. I have read WIPO document. I have had some
problems with categories X and Y definitions (due to my English) - I'd be very
grateful for explanation of the explanation :-)
As I understood the main aim of citation is to give a view to prior art. To do
this examiner should cite _similar_ patents, not necessirely _the_best_ones_.
I have also found two other texts related to the question. One can be found in
the article by Narin et al. (see below): "it is the responsibility of the
patent applicant and his attorney, and of the patent examiner, to identify,
through various references cited, _all_of_the_important_prior_art_ upon which
the issued patent improves. These references are chosen and / or screened by
the patent examiner, who is <<not called upon to cite all references that are
available, but only the best>>" (the inner quotation comes from PTO document on
examining procedures, referenced in the paper). The second one can be found in
the paper by Trajtenberg and comes from Office of Technology Assessment and
Forecast. Particularely the first one suggests that references should concern
not only similar documents, but simultanuously the best known.
Citations are generally used as a sign of importance, impact, value or even
quality of particular innovations. Statistics show they are strongly correlated
with other (economical) measures of value. I am interested what could be the
consequences if the referenced patents are only similar? I think on the term
"representativeness" for such situation - cited patents would be the most
representative for the field (defined through classification), not necessary
the best. As I know there were no research concerning legal / commonly accepted
regulations and examiners motivations to cite particular patents (or generally
- documents), but I have only limited access to the literature. It would be
interested to perform such survey among patent lawyers to get new (?) view on
the problem.
Thanks for your attention, any comments welcomed
References:
F. Narin, K.S. Hamilton, D, Olivastro: The increasing linkage between U.S.
technology and public science. Research Policy 26(1997):317-330
M. Trajtenberg: A penny for your quotes: patent citations and the value of
innovations. RAND Journal of Economics, Vol. 21, No. 1, Spring 1990
--
Adam Bartkowski (a.bartkowski@pz.zgora.pl)
Technical University
Institute of Informatics and Management
ul. Podgórna 50
65-246 Zielona Góra
Poland
>>> Real eyes realize real lies <<<
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Aug 10 2001 - 15:58:10 EDT