Patent citations ESPACENET vs. Fulltext

[bjurgens]

Hello Espacenet Team
I was wondering why in some cases the number of patent citations (backward) that shows ESPACENET is different to the ones in the full text document.

For example: patent EP2604284 shows in CITED DOCUMENTS no NPL cited by the applicant, whereas in the EP fulltext on the last page a reference list shows 3 NPL citations.

Reg. to this matter:
how are the applicant citations in EP patents identified? Automatically generated by text-mining in the full text (which can lead to errors by no identification of references)?

Best regards

[EPO / Innovation Networks]

Dear User,

Non-patent literature cited by the applicant without a patent application number cannot be traced in our databases.
The only traceable NPLs are those that have been cited and allocated an XP number by an EPO examiner. XP numbers are not allocated to NPLs cited by the applicant, unless the examiner decides that they form part of the European patent document - then they get an XP Nr. This is why they are not listed in your particular example.
However, in the European Patent Register, you will see that those NPLs without an XP number have been listed. This is because the examiner manually added these details to the search report (SR). Please observe the disclaimer at the top of that page of the SR.

Kind regards
Patent information team