Articles for Translators
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Patent Translations
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Translating a Patent: Translator's
Templates (Part II: The Specification)
For those who
are unfamiliar with patents, I would like to point out that the
strategy of discussing the patent document from the viewpoint of
the cover and then the specification was chosen strictly for the
purpose of dividing the umbrella topic - patent translation - into
manageable portions. It should not be interpreted to mean that the
cover page is a separate and unrelated entity that is followed sequentially
by the next self-contained module - the specification…
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Translating a Patent: Translator's
Templates (Part I: The Cover Page)
The object
of the following article is to provide English templates of the
cover page of German patents with explanatory text of the purpose
of each section. The historical approach that I have applied is
intended to highlight step by step two aspects: 1) the amount of
information that has been added over time, and 2) the importance
of this information for the translator, who possesses the skill
and knowledge to take advantage of common data available to everyone…
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Supply
and Demand Analysis of Patent Translation
As the internet shortens the intellectual distance between countries,
worldwide patent information becomes easily accessible. In order
to protect novel inventions, it is important to file a patent in
patent offices and distribute patent information online. Since patents
are granted for innovations, patents reflect economic growth of
a country by illustrating creative activities and displaying the
knowledge power of that particular country or region…
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the full article…
The Pace of Progress: The Changing Patent Landscape
The U.S. patent system is broken, says a growing chorus of critics,
and the past year has seen significant attempts to fix it in all
three branches of the U.S. government. Although it is impossible
to predict exactly how these efforts will play out, current trends
toward reform could have profound effects on patent practice—and
patent translators…
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Patent Translation
Errors for Filing in China
We all know how important a proper patent translation is when filing
in a foreign country. A bad translation of patent claims and specifications
may make a patent invalid or unenforceable. When dealing with Romance
languages, the lexicology and grammar can be similar enough to get
a word for word technical translation with occasional sentence restructuring…
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the full article…
Linguistic Problems with Translation of Japanese
Patents to English
Thousands
of examined and unexamined patent applications, utility models and
granted patents are translated every year from Japanese to English
in United States, Japan, Great Britain and other countries. The
quality of these translations is sometime excellent, and sometime
not very good. It is not difficult to find samples of bad translations
from Japanese. For example, the Japan Patent Office provides English
summaries of all published unexamined (Kokai) patent applications
in English…
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the full article…
Online dictionary
resources for patent, technical and medical translation from Japanese,
German and French to English. Part 2
A hundred years ago or so, there was basically only
one way to learn a trade. If you wanted to become, say, a bookbinder
or a violin maker in a European country such as Italy or Germany,
you had to become an apprentice in the workshop of an established
master, which meant that you basically had to work for room and
board for a number of years for a stern and stingy master bookbinder
or violin maker…
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the full article…
Musings
of a Japanese Translator in New York
Minoru Mochizuki presents a personal account of what it’s like to
be a Japanese translator making a living in the United States. He
then explains why he is grateful to Japanese inventors and TRADOS
…
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the full article…
Online dictionary
resources for patent, technical and medical translation from Japanese,
German and French to English. Part 1
I have always been intrigued by the very idea of
a dictionary. Or at least since a very young age, I think I must
have had an instinctive understanding of the value of a good dictionary.
When I was 15 (1967), I found in the attic an unexpected treasure:
an old Latin-Greek-German-Czech dictionary, published around 1920…
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the full article…
Useful Machine Translations of Japanese
Patents Have Become a Reality
The article continues the
previous (Reflections of a Human Translator on Machine Translation)
publication on the usefullness of Machine Translations…
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The Changing World of Japanese Patent
Translators
Some 15 years ago when I lived
in San Francisco, a translation agency in downtown called and asked
whether I could come to their office to have a look at a patent.
It had been faxed to them by a law firm but they were not sure whether
it was legible enough for translating because, like most translation
agencies, they could not read Japanese. So I took the bus downtown
and then an elevator to the agency's office on Market Street to
have a look at what appeared to be a third generation fax. It was
hopeless…
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Reflections of a Human Translator
on Machine Translation or Will MT Become the "Deus Ex Machina"
Rendering Humans Obsolete in an Age When "Deus Est Machina?"
Every now and
then Federal Express delivers a thick envelope to my home office
with at least a dozen Japanese patents and a cover letter from a
patent lawyer asking me to provide a price quote for translating
the whole package. After the initial rush that comes from seeing
big dollar signs when I am done counting the pages and multiplying
them by my estimate for the number of words to arrive at the dollar
figure, I try to calm down as I prepare a fax to the lawyer. More
often than not, the price is too high and the lawyer has to find
a way to argue the technological aspects of a patent case without
knowing all the details of what is in all those patents…
Read the full article…
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