Patent translation is not simply a matter of replacing German words with English ones. An experienced patent translator must reconstruct the invention, test terminology against the description, claims and drawings, and avoid making the English either broader or narrower than the original.
Standard German patent terms As with all languages, German follows strict formal conventions with respect to patent terminology. There are many German patent words and phrases that have precise English equivalent terms. Unfortunately, the Internet is littered with poorly translated German patents, and so it is not uncommon to find incorrectly translated terms being used […]
German patent texts are typically characterised by long, intricate sentences packed with technical details. The German language’s system of gender and cases in particular makes the meaning of nested clauses a lot easier to follow and less ambiguous than would be the case with equivalent sentence structure in English. When translating German patents into English, […]
Why translate German patents? Since Germany is a contracting nation to the PTC and EPC, there is broad scope for getting German patents validated and/or ‘counter-filed’ in other countries as part of an international patent application. Given the dominance of English, not only as an official and accepted language with WIPO, EPO and many International […]
As intellectual property, a patent is only useful in the advancement of technology insofar as the information it contains can be shared. Patent translation is a crucial bridge to making valuable technology and innovation available and hence useful to more people and organisations globally. However, since patents are territorial — i.e. they are only effective […]
Patents are a subset of intellectual property, which includes the likes of trademarks, copyrights, industrial designs and other forms of intangible property (i.e. that created in the mind and having no physical form). Therefore, like all types of property, patents also can be considered an asset – something that can be owned and have monetary […]
Through over a decade of translating written opinions of the Searching Authority on patent applications, one of the common objections we see raised by examiners is that of a patent application lacking clarity. A patent application must satisfy Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) Article 6, which specifies that: “The claim or claims shall define the matter […]
Shortfalls of machine translation The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) still employs human translators for translating patent documents. They undoubtedly have very good reasons to do so, as do we. Although there is definitely a place for machine translation in this day and age, it is nonetheless just a tool and cannot replace the need […]