Update: there has been a partial fix for this. The cited_patent_number field is now filled in:
Some patents cite ones not in the database. The xml and json have citedPatent blocks where only the sequence number is filled in. It might be nice to at least show the
patent number, kind and date or whatever was scraped. Guessing a join is making the data null
since those patents aren't in the database. It's generally accepted that even the uspto does
not have titles for pre-1976 patents.
ex: pn 3930271 references:
2379430 July 1945 Frost
2782422 February 1957 Bencriscutto
resulting in this block of json and analogous xml:
"cited_patents": [
{
"cited_patent_category": null,
"cited_patent_date": null,
"cited_patent_id": null,
"cited_patent_kind": null,
"cited_patent_number": null,
"cited_patent_sequence": "0",
"cited_patent_title": null
},
{
"cited_patent_category": null,
"cited_patent_date": null,
"cited_patent_id": null,
"cited_patent_kind": null,
"cited_patent_number": null,
"cited_patent_sequence": "1",
"cited_patent_title": null
}
]
}
]