
The Explore Citations tab allows you to explore the linkages between documents and entities by viewing and analysing the the citing and cited scholarly works or patents (forward and backward citations) for a search or collection.
Location

The Explore Citation tab is available on the search results page of a scholarly works or patent search. The available citation sets are listed on the tab drop-down menu, along with the unique citing/cited document count in the citation result set. From the drop-down menu you can choose any citation set you want to explore.
How to Use
Scholarly Works Citations
The Explore Citations tab on a scholarly works search allows you to explore the linkages between documents and entities by viewing and analysing the forward and backward citations to other scholarly works, as well as the citing patents in the result set. Like any other scholarly search result, users can also save the query, save as collection, share, export or sort the scholarly work citation result set.
There are three different scholarly citation sets available to explore:
Citing Scholarly Works (forward citations)

Citing Scholarly Works are the scholarly works that cite (reference) the scholarly works in the original result set. The result set in this tab represents the list of unique scholarly works that cite the scholarly works in the original result set.
Use Cases: Citing Scholarly Works allow authors and institutions to analyse the influence of their scholarly works and see who and which institutions have cited the scholarly works. It also allows research funders to analyse the impact of funded research by assessing who and which institutions the research has influenced.
Cited Scholarly Works (backward citations)

Cited Scholarly Works are the scholarly works that are cited by (referenced by) the scholarly works in the original result set. The result set in this tab represents the list of unique scholarly works that have been cited by the scholarly works in the original result set.
Use Cases: Cited scholarly works allow authors and institutions to see what sources (e.g. journals and publishers), and which researchers/institutions, have influenced their research.
Citing Patents (forward patent citations)

Citing Patents are the patents that cite (reference) the scholarly works in the original result set. The result set in this tab represents the list of unique patent documents that cite the scholarly works in the original scholarly works result set.
Use cases: The citing patents allow authors/institutions to see how their work has influenced intellectual property, and which companies and inventions have been influenced by the work. Citing patents also allow publishers to explore the domains of innovation their publications have influenced. Research institutions can discover if their work is cited by the companies of interest to help identify potential partnership opportunities.
Patent Citations
Explore the linkages between patent documents and entities by viewing and analysing the forward and backward citations to other patents, as well as the non-patent literature citations that have been resolved to a scholarly work in the Lens. Like any other patent search result user can also save the query, save as collection, share, export or sort the scholarly work citation result set.
There are three different patent citation sets available to explore:
Cited Scholarly Works (backward NPL citations)

Cited Scholarly Works are the non-patent literature (NPL) that are cited by the patent documents in the original result set and have been been resolved to a scholarly work in The Lens. The result set in this tab represents the list of unique scholarly works that have been cited by the patent documents in the original patent result set.
Use cases: For researchers it helps to analyse what research papers or what institutions have been influential in the innovation of interest.
Citing Patents (forward citations)
Citing Patents are the patent documents citing (i.e., references cited) the Patent documents in the original result set. The result set in this tab represents the list of unique patent documents that cite the patents in the original patent result set. For example, a patent with Lens Id ‘US 2021/0209655 A1’ was published on Jul 8, 2021 and was later cited by 1 other patent published after this date.
Use cases: For the patent owner, the number of citing patents can indicate the potential market value of the technology. If a patent is cited frequently by other patents, it suggests that the technology is important and may have a significant commercial value.

Cited Patents (backward citations)
Cited Patents are the Patent documents that are cited by the Patent documents in the original result set. The result set in this tab represents the list of unique patent documents that have been cited by the patents in the original patent result set.
Use cases: For an inventor, cited patents helps to identify existing patents or other publications that describe the same or similar technology to that covered by a patent application. By analyzing the cited patents of a patent application, inventors can identify potentially relevant prior art and assess the patentability of the invention.

Caveats
- The Lens currently supports citation results for the first 100,000 cites/citing works or patents of initial search as the joins are too large to process.
- All Documents (Blank) searches are too large and resource intensive to support citation joins and can take a while to process.
- Counts or citing/cited works and patents are not displayed unless the initial search result is less than 1 million works
- large or slow queries will timeout after 30 seconds. We recommend refining your search to reduce the number of results. If the page times out or seems to load forever, please try refreshing the page, check your browser is up to date or contact Lens support at support@lens.org