Translating the Language of Patents

This is a guide to translating the language of patents and how to avoid costly translation errors, errors which might hinder the examination process for granting patents, or that might make patents undefendable in a context of litigation. The identified provisions of law govern language uses, right down to the use of punctuation.

This book is a guide to translating the language of patents in view of avoiding costly translation errors. Errors that might hinder the examination process for granting patents, or that might make patents undefendable in a context of litigation.

The 42 sections of this book each identify different provisions of the law for their relevance to translation. These provisions govern language uses, right down to the use of punctuation. Each of the sections present findings, both in terms of the relevant provisions identified, and their specific significance to translation. Exemplified translations focus on French and English, but when there is a consensus across Intellectual property systems, multilingual parallelism is highlighted. Wherever relevant, provisions of specific rules and regulations are presented and exemplified in the three official languages of the European Patent Office (EPO), English, French, and German and three official languages of the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), English, French, and Spanish.

Written by an experienced teacher, patent translator, and author of the blog, Patents on the Soles of Your Shoes, this is a rigorously researched, authoritative, and comprehensive guide for all professional translators working on patents, and for students and translators working in legal translation. Accompanying powerpoint slides including information on how to use this book in courses are provided here: Introduction to using Translating the language of Patents PowerPoints (PPT 185KB).

Auteur

Françoise Herrmann, Phd, is currently a Lecturer at San Jose State University in California and at Kent State University in Ohio, thanks to the wizardry of online course delivery systems.

Contenu

List of figures

List of tables

Preface

Acknowledgements

List of acronyms and abbreviations

1. Corpus of laws, rules, regulations, international agreements and administrative instructions
2. What is a patent?
3. When is a patent?
4. What does a patent do?
5. When is a patent a source text for translation?
6. The Person Having Ordinary Skill In The Art (PHOSITA)
7. Prior art
8. International Search Report (ISR)
9. Internationally agreed Numbers for the Identification of bibliographic Data (INID) codes
10. Title of the invention (code 54)
11. Grantee, holder, assignee, or owner of a patent (code 73)
12. The patent application
13. Disclosure of the invention
14. Global consensus on disclosing inventions
15. Language uses invoked to perform the requirements of the law
16. The Enablement Requirement
17. Embodiment vs. example
18. The Best Mode Requirement
19. The Claims Section
20. The Single-Sentence Rule (SSR)
21. Direct object function
22. Claim structure
23. Transitional verbs comprising vs. consisting of (EN), comprenant vs. constituer de (FR), umfassen gegenüber bestehen aus (DE), que comprende vs. consistente en (ES)
24. Claims recitation rules: Backward only and in the alternative
25. Antecedence and ascertainability of claims terminology
26. Plain meaning
27. The Lexicographer Rule
28. Format, numbering, spacing, and fonts
29. Representation of recited claims: The Claims Tree function at Espacenet
30. Abstract of the invention
31. Patent drawings
32. Design vs. utility patents
33. Plant patents
34. Units of measurement
35. The literal translation requirement
36. Translations filed at the United States Patent and Trademark Office
37. Translations filed at the European Patent Office
38. Translations filed at the World Intellectual Property Organization
39. Patent search tools at the World Intellectual Property Organization
40. Patent search tools at the European Patent Office
41. Patent Public Search portal at the United States Patent and Trademark Office
42. Patent-related bioethical controversies Appendix I Instructions for obtaining **circled font for INID code numbers

Appendix II List of cited patents

Appendix III European patent dataset

Appendix IV Cited US Code, rules, regulations, and administrative instructions

Appendix V Cited EPO Convention rules, guidelines, and administrative instructions

Appendix VI Cited WIPO Treaty rules, standards, regulations, guidelines, and administrative instructions

Index