This editorial highlights the connections between predatory medical journals and patents, emphasizing their influence in academic and non-academic settings.
Purpose: The negative impact of potential predatory journals has been widely discussed, primarily within academic contexts. However, their influence beyond academia remains underexplored. This study aims to address that gap. Methods: The current editorial utilised a sample list of 8 potential predatory medical journals. We compiled a list of potential predatory medical journals using the discontinued titles list in Scopus and the current blocklists. Then their patent-to-paper citations have been examined to understand the dissemination of questionable medical publications outside of academia. Results: This indicates that potential predatory medical journals received 483,848 citations from scholarly works and 4,251 citations from patents. Conclusion: When patents cite papers from predatory journals, flawed information may propagate, or potentially leading to wrongful patent rejections and wasted resources. This serves as a warning for the patent community to take action against potential predatory journals.
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Hegedűs et al. (2025) studied this question.
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