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Citations are important in Wikipedia to ensure that information comes from actual, reliable sources (WP:V, WP:CITE). There are three preferred ways of citing sources: Footnotes; Footnotes with list-defined references; Shortened footnotes
The content of a patent should be considered somewhat less reliable. Patent examiners do not replicate any experiments, build any devices, or decide whether any tests run by the inventor were done correctly. They have no way of knowing whether information provided by the inventor is accurate or whether the invention will work as described.
On Wikipedia, an inline citation is generally a citation in a page's text placed by any method that allows the reader to associate a given bit of material with specific reliable source(s) that support it. The most common method is numbered footnotes within the text, but other forms are also used on occasion.
The word "source" in Wikipedia has three meanings: the work itself (for example, a document, article, paper, or book), the creator of the work (for example, the writer), and the publisher of the work (for example, Cambridge University Press). All three can affect reliability.
A full citation fully identifies a reliable source and, where applicable, the place in that source (such as a page number) where the information in question can be found. For example: Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice .
Reliable source examples ; Topic-specific essays. Identifying reliable sources (history) Identifying reliable sources (law) Identifying reliable sources (science) Identifying reliable sources (medicine) Identifying and using style guides (WP:STYLEGUIDES)
(The Economist has a good reputation and a strong business incentive to get their facts straight since their core constituency includes high-powered decision-maker types who require reliable data and pay a lot for it, but so far we don't have a cite describing their operation, so...
The medium is not the message; source evaluation is an evaluation of content, not publication format. Sometimes high-quality, generally tertiary individual sources are also primary or secondary sources for some material. Two examples are etymological research that is the original work of a dictionary's staff (primary); and analytical not just regurgitative material in a topical encycl