This book is a guide to translating the language of patents in view of avoiding costly translation errors. Errors that might hinder the examination process for granting patents, or that might make patents undefendable in a context of litigation. The 42 sections of this book each identify different provisions of the law for their relevance to translation. These provisions govern language uses, right down to the use of punctuation. Each of the sections present findings, both in terms of the relevant provisions identified, and their specific significance to translation. Exemplified translations focus on French and English, but when there is a consensus across Intellectual property systems, multilingual parallelism is highlighted. Wherever relevant, provisions of specific rules and regulations are presented and exemplified in the three official languages of the European Patent Office (EPO), English, French, and German and three official languages of the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), English, French, and Spanish. Written by an experienced teacher, patent translator, and author of the blog, Patents on the Soles of Your Shoes, this is a rigorously researched, authoritative, and comprehensive guide for all professional translators working on patents, and for students and translators working in legal translation. Accompanying powerpoint slides including information on how to use this book in courses are provided here: Introduction to using Translating the language of Patents PowerPoints (PPT 185KB).

Table of Contents:
List of figures List of tables Preface Acknowledgements List of acronyms and abbreviations Corpus of laws, rules, regulations, international agreements and administrative instructions What is a patent? When is a patent? What does a patent do? When is a patent a source text for translation? The Person Having Ordinary Skill In The Art (PHOSITA) Prior art International Search Report (ISR) Internationally agreed Numbers for the Identification of bibliographic Data (INID) codes Title of the invention (code 54) Grantee, holder, assignee, or owner of a patent (code 73) The patent application Disclosure of the invention Global consensus on disclosing inventions Language uses invoked to perform the requirements of the law The Enablement Requirement Embodiment vs. example The Best Mode Requirement The Claims Section The Single-Sentence Rule (SSR) Direct object function Claim structure Transitional verbs comprising vs. consisting of (EN), comprenant vs. constituer de (FR), umfassen gegenüber bestehen aus (DE), que comprende vs. consistente en (ES) Claims recitation rules: Backward only and in the alternative Antecedence and ascertainability of claims terminology Plain meaning The Lexicographer Rule Format, numbering, spacing, and fonts Representation of recited claims: The Claims Tree function at Espacenet Abstract of the invention Patent drawings Design vs. utility patents Plant patents Units of measurement The literal translation requirement Translations filed at the United States Patent and Trademark Office Translations filed at the European Patent Office Translations filed at the World Intellectual Property Organization Patent search tools at the World Intellectual Property Organization Patent search tools at the European Patent Office Patent Public Search portal at the United States Patent and Trademark Office Patent-related bioethical controversies Appendix I Instructions for obtaining circled font for INID code numbers Appendix II List of cited patents Appendix III European patent dataset Appendix IV Cited US Code, rules, regulations, and administrative instructions Appendix V Cited EPO Convention rules, guidelines, and administrative instructions Appendix VI Cited WIPO Treaty rules, standards, regulations, guidelines, and administrative instructions Index