The number of forward citations (FC) of a patent has been one of the considerations used when assessing the value of a patent or patent portfolio. Patent valuations are conducted for various reasons, for example, as part of due diligence work relating to a possible company merger or acquisition of a company or the patent portfolio itself.

Among the scientific community, a journal article’s number of citations generally confers at least some degree of prestige and other benefits to the authors. But whether the journal article’s many citations reflect the importance conferred on it by the scientific community is not always clear. Regardless, a journal article’s high citation numbers generally provide certain advantages to the authors, e.g., possible consideration for promotion to a higher professorial rank, in addition to some bragging rights.

Patents though are not scientific papers. So, whatever value the number of citations bestows on a journal article or its author(s) is probably mostly irrelevant when considering patents, except maybe for the bragging right part.