The importance of clearly written patent claims
The Patent Prospecter blogged recently that inventors and the prosecutors they hire often fail to draft adequate patent claims, leading to a worthless patent.
According to the post, “[b]esides creativity, discipline and a fluency in English are key ingredients for an inventor to benefit from the U.S. patent system.” It goes on to assert that well written claims are both broad, to avoid infringement, and succinct to ensure precision in what’s being claimed.
This shines a spotlight on the importance of the patent translator. Obviously, he has only the source document to work with, whether well drafted or not. He cannot guess at what the prosecutor meant but did not adequately articulate. Yet he must make every effort to put himself in the head of the inventor and prosecutor to extract as much of the intended effect as possible; he must detect the precision and emphasis of the source patent and in turn emphasize those elements that are pivotal to the novelty of the invention.
As one comment to the Patent Prospector post suggests — and with which I fully agreed — the best way to achieve this is to work directly with the same translator on every job, so that he or she learns the subtleties of the invention.
I welcome patent translators to comment on what a difference it makes to work closely with a patent attorney on an ongoing basis rather than a one-off job.
2 responses so far ↓
1 MT // May 30, 2008 at 4:34 pm
I have never worked closely with a patent author, but when translating patents, as a translator, you are forced to render a translation that is very, very close to the original. When the source material is abysmal, the translation will be doubly so because the translator dare not take any liberty whatsoever. In many ways, patent translations are the complete opposite of fiction translations. I have at times been forced to use footnotes to explain that every instance of a source word X is being translated as target word Y–not because it makes the best sense in the target language but because the one-to-one equivalency reigns supreme. Otherwise one might question my own writing skills.
I’d love to hear some comments from translators who have worked with authors, too.
Great post.
2 Glenn // May 31, 2008 at 7:48 am
MT,
Thanks for your comment. You’re right, being able to defend your translation when the source is poorly written is important. And some clients do not like footnotes, either, which means you have to include a disclaimer when you return.
As you say, I think the constraints in other types of translation are not so great. Literature would seem to afford more liberty (or it certainly has for many translators whether they were given the liberty or just took it).
In my experience the great difference in translating literature as opposed to other things is that a [good] writer has a style that’s different than conventional language, so the translator must find an equivalent style that’s removed from the norm to the same degree. Many other translators on the other hand are striving for conventional ways of speaking by asking “how would an American lawyer/ doctor/ engineer, say this?”
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