Hi,
I just finished reading through a frightful exchange between a customer and a translator in regards to a job for the partial translation of a patent application. A few things scared me about the exchange:
1. The customer was expecting to find a translator who was fully versed in patent translation from Japanese to English and instead had his job picked up by someone like me, a general translator and probably a long-time lover of the the Japanese language with above average skill in translating Japanese to English.
2. From what I could tell from the exchange, the translator was not very well versed in patent translation which made it hard for him or her to respond to the customer's concerns and complaints.
The gap between the customer's expectations and the prowess of the translator in patent translation resulted in frustration on both sides. To the translator that fell prey to a demanding client, I just want to say don't take it too hard. I think we've all been there (at least I know I have); you do your best to complete a piece of work that may or may not be a within your expertise and client throws which results in all our work and time going straight down the drain. To be fair, there are no winners when this happens since the customer is left still waiting for someone else to try and pull Excaliber from the rock. After reading the discourse on the job page, however, I was not even tempted.
I believe that there may be certain kinds of translations that do not belong on Mygengo (at least not yet). There are companies that handle nothing but patent translations. They hire people with science degrees who end up doing nothing but patent translation for hours a day. They have access to great vaults of information on patent terminology and formatting to say nothing of their own experience in the field. How can we be expected to compete with specialists of that calibre? Well, without the proper professional development, I, personally speaking cannot . . . but maybe we can. Here is what I propose. Since I have been talking about patent translation, let's use this entry as a hub for collecting links to any useful patent translation site/resource we can come up with. This way, the next time one of us is in need of assistance, we will not have to scour the entire Googlescape to come up with some useful pointers for patent translation. Who is with me?
Miguel (translator#21009)
Japanese to English
12 comments
To get the ball rolling, check out these resources.
http://patenttranslations.com/res_forTranslators.htm
The links here are mostly for beginners (not all of them work). Some of the links give examples of formatting and also walk you through some of the basics.
All credit for the above resources goes to seasoned patent translator Martin Cross.
hi miguel,
thanks for starting this thread..! even I work for the JPN-EN pair, and I have recently started taking a liking to patent translation this year....so am learning all about it now...
I would like to visit this thread regularly and would like to hear from any others who are experienced in this genre.....
With this, I would like to give a link from WIPO website. WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) is one of the 17 specialized agencies of the UN, headquartered in Geneva. And, the International Bureau at WIPO is responsible for providing an English translation of the reports not originally written in English......And, I found a distance learning course on PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) on the WIPO website, and it has been mentioned that it is free...have not checked it yet, but thought to share the link here, for those interested in knowing the basics....
http://www.wipo.int/pct/en/distance_learning/index.html
Even I have a lot to learn in this field, and would be interested to share whatever that I can....And patents generally being legal in nature, hopefully only those resources which can be shared must be updated here....
As I browsed more, I found another link having a lot of courses on the WIPO website...just in case it may help...
http://wipo.int/academy/en/courses/rp_catalog/index.jsp
Hi Miguel, You're welcome ! Actually, I was glad to see a specific post started on patent translation.....! After posting here, I immediately registered for the Primer on Intellectual Property course from the catalog link which I have pasted above :-) All the 3 general courses seem to be free of charge...and it would definitely give us a general idea...and maybe if we are interested further, we can go in for the advanced courses......and the plus point is that....as there are no time restrictions, I plan to do it in my own pace!
If anyone has specific links like these related to translation of patents(JPN-EN), it would be great to hear !!! The links which I have given here are just for a general idea, I guess.....Of course, even other languages can be posted here, for the benefit of all in the Gengo community!! :-)
This is fantastic, Miguel and Niko Niko. Do you mind if I move it into our Resources forum?
Thanks,
Natalia
This is fantastic, Miguel and Niko Niko. Do you mind if I move it into our Resources forum?
Thanks,
Natalia
Hi Natalia,
Please go ahead and move it to the Resources forum!!
Hope it helps the others too :-)
Thanks.
As i searched on Internet i find a site that provide the patent translation over the 170 languages. So this is good site for the any translation. http://www.affordableinterpreters.com/
Just my little contribution to this forum: http://bit.ly/Q66V9o. From page 41 to 45 you'll find a bilingual glossary (ES-EN) of terms relating to patents.