Making Patent Citations Count: Statistical Tools for Valuing Innovation in Litigation and Licensing

June 1, 2026

Managing Director Richard Eichmann and Director Adam Rhoten examine how statistical normalization techniques can improve the reliability of patent citation analysis in litigation and licensing contexts in their latest publication with the Loyola University New Orleans College of Law, Law Review.

In Making Patent Citations Count: Statistical Tools for Valuing Innovation in Litigation and Licensing, the authors analyze the limitations of raw citation counts and demonstrate how normalized citation metrics, including logarithmic and z-score methodologies, can provide a more rigorous framework for assessing technological significance and apportionment.

The article explores how citation-based methodologies may be applied in reasonable royalty and valuation analyses while remaining consistent with evidentiary reliability standards under Rule 702 and Daubert.

More broadly, the paper argues that patent citation analysis should not be treated as a simplistic counting exercise, but rather as an inferential statistical framework requiring normalization, contextualization, and economic interpretation.

To discuss how economic and statistical analysis can support intellectual property disputes and valuation matters connect with Richard Eichmann and Adam Rhoten.

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