Patent rejection data is special. Patent rejection data is qualitatively different and distinct from non-exclusive citation data. Non-exclusively, only about 30% of the REFERENCED BY EXAMINERS listed in issued patent publications are examiner citations used in patent rejections. The remaining 70% of REFERENCED BY EXAMINERS are more of a reference nature, not directly used in the examination of an applied patent.
Notably, REFERENCED BY EXAMINER only occurs in issued patents, and only in issued patent publications, whereas patent rejection data occurs in rejected patents, not just issued patents.
Patent rejections have the following advantages. First, patent rejections are authoritative data that is officially generated by a nation's organization (the Intellectual Property Office) - the term patent rejection is an official term of the Intellectual Property Office.
Second, they are much more curated events than patent citations. According to the United States of America's Intellectual Property Office, about 20% of all patent citations are from examiners, and of those 20% of examiner citations, only about 30% (about 6% of all citations) are related to patent rejections.
Third, patent rejection data generates more sophisticated relationship data than patent citations: patent rejection data has a variety of detailed relationships between the patent under examination Pi and its preceding citation reference patents Pij, such as the reason for rejection based on patent requirements (lack of novelty, non-obviousness), whether or not independent claims were rejected, whether or not the rejection was non-final/final, etc. On the other hand, citation data Ne does not have such relationship data.
Fourth, patent rejection data is network data: when a patent Pi is examined, the examiner assigns preceding citation references Pij (j ≥ 1) to reject patent Pi. Since Pi and Pij are both patents, they are patent rejection data, creating a rejection network between patents. Furthermore, various homogeneous and heterogeneous networks are also created using the attributes of patents: right holder, inventor, patent classification, etc. Fifth, patent rejections are characterized by being much more sensitive and appealing to the market/public than patent citations; the term patent rejection is an official term of the Intellectual Property Office. On the other hand, unlike citations, patent rejections are not organized in papers, etc.
Based on the advantages of patent rejection data, patent rejection data has various utilizations. First, it is an analysis/comparison analysis of the technology competitiveness of companies/researchers. You can make a reliable IR/promotion/explanation of your company's technology competitiveness with the authoritative and objective data of patent rejections.
Second, you can proactively discover patent risks for your company's specific technology area or the company as a whole. You can identify preceding patents that are causing multiple rejections of your patents, and the inventors or right holders of those patents. This will allow them to passively develop a patent risk hedging strategy. On the other hand, actively, they can consider i) patent purchases, ii) talent acquisitions, and iii) investments, M&As, and collaborations with companies.