6.2 Citation of documents corresponding to documents not available or not published in one of the EPO's official languages 

In certain circumstances, the search division can cite a document without having verified its content if it has good reason to assume that it is identical in content to another document which it has inspected. Both documents are then mentioned in the search report as described at the end of B‑X, 9.1.2. For example, where a document published in a non‑EPO language before the filing date has been selected for citation, the search division may instead have inspected a corresponding document in an official EPO language (e.g. another member of the same patent family or a translation of an article) and possibly published after the filing date. Unless the contrary is explicitly stated, it can also be assumed that an abstract's contents are included in the original document, just as it is normally assumed that what is said in a report of an oral presentation matches what was presented.

Before citing a document written in a language it is not familiar with, the search division must make sure it is relevant (e.g. by using a machine translation, a translation by a colleague, a corresponding document or an abstract in a familiar language, by referring to a drawing or chemical formula in the document to be cited or by consulting database indexes relating to that document's technical content (see B‑X, 9.1.3)).