At Translating Patents, we currently provide translation services exclusively with the language pairs German-English and Russian-English.

Patent translation requires reference to the full patent application – the description, abstract, claims and drawings. This gives our translators the complete context for an invention. The description and drawings are essential to understanding and interpreting the claims, for instance. When an application goes to the International Preliminary Examining Authority, the examiner will likewise refer to all said sections of a patent application in providing a written opinion or examination report.

Reference is also made to the IPC classes and prior art documents (which ought to be mentioned in a given application, pursuant to PCT rules for drafting applications). This can often help in determining correct terminology for aspects of an invention.

The translation is produced so as to be consistent with respect to terminology, standard formulations and style. Proper patent-specific terms are used and, if necessary, checked against in-house guides.

Where any errors in the source language are found, these are flagged with the client and resolved appropriately. (If the patent is at the pre-filing stage, then this is the opportunity for the applicant to make amendments to the wording of their application. Given how many issues arise during the examination stage, its (unfortunately) unsurprising for a translator to encounter multiple errors in a source text). This is the extra value that you get from translation — checks on logic, syntax, consistency and much more.

A revisor will later re-read and check through the translation of your document(s).

Quality assurance checks are finally performed with respect to adherence to terminology guides, style guides, term consistency, omissions, numbers, syntax, spelling and possible typographical errors.

There is no simple formula, but since we are a boutique agency without the overheads of a large company/corporation, we can provide prices that are competitive without compromising on quality.

Translation is a bespoke service and, much like any customised product or service, cannot be returned. As outlined above under the section ‘What is involved in patent translation?’, the translation process is an intellectual product that has a considerable inherent cost in terms of manhours and expertise. To protect ourselves against financial detriment and opportunity loss, we therefore request pre-payment. This also avoids associated time costs in chasing payment, should non-payment be an issue. Also, asking you to pay upfront ensures that you only place an order deliberately when you are 100% ready.

Email us to discuss your requirements and send us relevant working documents for translation. We will send you a quote and an estimated completion time (subject to payment date). Once you’re satisfied with the proposal, you can provide pre-payment by bank transfer or PayPal. The order is effectively placed on receipt of payment from you.

We translate a wide range of patent documents, including:

  • patent abstracts, descriptions and claims (of prior art documents and your application documents);
  • written opinions / examination reports of the International Searching Authority;
  • opposition / appeal correspondence.

Ultimately, we can only work with editable text formats (e.g. in Microsoft Word), so prefer to receive texts in already editable formats. Scanned text (e.g. in PDF) will generally require additional work in OCR conversion, checking and formatting before and after a translation is produced, so will entail a surcharge if provided as the source file format.

A translation is typically delivered electronically and by email. However, you may also provide access to your own secure cloud storage for downloading source documents and uploading translated documents.

Please mention your preferred method of delivery during your initial enquiry and/or order placement.

Translations are typically provided in Microsoft Word files.

We prefer bank transfer and/or PayPal, but may also consider similar alternative methods.

The turnaround time for a translation depends on the scope of the order, notably on the size of the document (in terms of wordcount). Non-standard document formats (in particular if OCR conversion is required to first produce an editable file type) will take longer and cost more due to additional conversion and formatting work.

As a rough guide, it is recommended that 7-10 days be given per 10,000 words.

Urgent/rush services can be provided in some cases, but a surcharge may also apply.

In any case, the longer the text, the more time will be required to provide the translation.

We appreciate if you can allow longer for your translation since we prefer not to rush jobs, but instead focus on providing a premium quality service.