It is well known that the customer is always right but being right all the time can put you in a tough spot. When an attorney suggests a due date for a translation, service providers are unlikely to object or to question the decision-making process. This well-intentioned practice leaves some difficult decisions up to the […]Continue reading
The use of plural and singular in translating Asian patents often requires careful consideration. With a few exceptions, such as “sheep” and “fish,” English nouns come in distinct single or plural forms. The separation is deeply tied into how we see the world and the grammar we use to describe it. Even with the exceptions […]Continue reading
“In the end, isn’t translation a matter of personal opinion?” The question was thrown at me by an attorney for the other side who hoped what she was saying was true. If it were, and translations could only be evaluated in the same way we make decisions about fashion or flavors of ice-cream, then the one […]Continue reading
Translators are required to make hundreds of judgments every day. Some of these are analytical judgments, which call on the translator to come to conclusions based on limited evidence. That means answering questions like this: what is the author trying to get across? what does this term mean in this particular context? does this adjective modify the […]Continue reading
I recently got an email from a fellow who is interested in a career in patent translation and I thought I would help to rectify the lamentable lack of posts on this blog by answering it in public. I get quite a few letters of this sort every year, so it is not the first […]Continue reading
Contents v Preface vii Introduction PART I: THE ART AND PRACTICE OF PATENT TRANSLATION 3 Approaches to Patent Translation: Many Ways to Build a Mousetrap Kirk Anderson 11 An Introduction to Patent Translation Nicholas Hartmann 19 Literal Translation of Patents Martin Cross 29 Industrial Property Considerations for Patent Translators R. Vivanco Cohn […]Continue reading
If you ever get a translation of a published patent from me that is full of run-on sentences, inconsistent terminology and weak logic, you may just be looking at my best work. When translating patents for information or litigation support, our job of is like that of a court interpreter — we reproduce what was […]Continue reading
I once translated a priority document together with another translator. We used a translation of the priority document, which had long ago been filed with the USPTO, as our common terminology reference (that way both of us would use the same terms in our translations). The translation published by the USPTO was probably done by […]Continue reading
Recently I’ve been translating a lot of litigation support stuff. Usually, when you say those words in translation circles, the images that come to mind are of boxes containing ten thousand pages of handwritten discovery documents that need to be translated in two days. What I am doing this time is a little different. I’m […]Continue reading
I once had the chance to edit a translation by a well-known and very successful (by which I mean busy) J>E translator. There were numerous problems with the translation which could be attributed to a poor grasp of Japanese and a poor understanding of the technology. The result was a translation that seemed to describe […]Continue reading
