Under certain circumstances a document whose contents have not been verified may be cited, provided there is justification for the assumption that there is identity of content with another document which the search division has inspected; both documents are then mentioned in the search report in the manner indicated at the end of B‑X, 9.1.2. For example, instead of the document published before the filing date in a non-EPO language and selected for citation, the search division may have inspected a corresponding document (e.g. another member of the same patent family, or a translation of an article) in an official EPO language and possibly published after the filing date. Also, it may be assumed that, in the absence of explicit indications to the contrary, the contents of an abstract are contained in the original document. Further, it is normally assumed that the contents of a report of an oral presentation are in agreement with that presentation.

Before citing documents in a language with which it is not familiar, the search division must make sure that the document is relevant (e.g. through a machine translation, through translation by a colleague, through a corresponding document or abstract in a familiar language, or through a drawing or chemical formula in the document or by consulting database indexes relating to the technical content of that document (see B‑X, 9.1.3)).