Don’t let your patent portfolio get lost in translation
11 Jul 2023
5 mins
Many of us are familiar with this scenario: You buy a gadget. Tearing open the package, you find the instruction booklet. Before long, it becomes painfully clear that the instructions are the victim of poor-quality translation software. The consequences can be humorous or inconvenient, often both, as you stumble through the process of activating your new device.
Unfortunately, this situation isn't limited to the relatively low-stakes world of consumer electronics. Poor translation of your company’s patent portfolio can have serious consequences. Read on to learn how high-quality patent translation is instrumental in your global IP protection strategy.
What is patent translation quality?
Accuracy and consistency are the hallmarks of translation quality.
Consistency applies both across jurisdictions and among various patents in a portfolio. For example, if a patent application in one country is inconsistent with the base country patent, there’s a risk of limiting or even losing protection. In addition, consistency in related terms throughout a family of patents can enhance your long-term enforcement power.
Similarly, accuracy takes on multiple dimensions. Accuracy means more than just correlation among words across languages. It requires a nuanced understanding of the patented technology and the requirements of each country’s intellectual property office.
Why is quality essential in patent translations?
The dangers of mistranslation for that whizzy new gadget instruction manual include inconvenience or frustration. The dangers of mistranslation of patent applications or other intellectual property documents range from costs to correct errors through to limited scope of protection, and even loss of rights.
Keeping tight control of translation quality can be time consuming, particularly when you are managing multiple suppliers across different time zones, currencies and exchange rates. There are, however, some common pitfalls that can increase the likelihood of errors occurring, and being aware of them can help you reduce the risk of receiving sub-standard IP translations. These pitfalls include:
- Overreliance on local counsel: Companies and law firms often assume that their trusted local counsel can provide quality translation for patent applications. No matter how reliable your foreign associates are for prosecution, they probably do not have the staffing or technology to provide the best translation quality for the money. In fact, it’s likely that they are outsourcing translation to their local service provider. Where this is the case, there is no guarantee that the translation you receive this month will be translated by the same person next month. This increases the risk of inconsistency and variations in quality.
- Low-cost translation service providers: These providers also may have limited staffing and rely on outsourced freelance translators. This is a problem for large or time-sensitive projects. Moreover, while these individuals may have general translation skills, often they are not subject matter experts in the relevant technology.
- Not knowing the options: If you are paying for a professional IP translation service, it is perfectly reasonable to assume you will receive a high-quality result. Unfortunately, not all patent translation services are created equal. The price of a good translation service includes much more than translation of the words in the document. Quality translations should be checked by highly qualified linguistic revisors to ensure accuracy and consistency. The work should also be overseen by a project manager, who will provide continuous quality control throughout.
Selecting the best provider within your budget
With all the options available, finding the best patent translation provider can be complex. Even with an array of translation technology existing today, our expert human translators remain at the heart of our patent translation process. This ensures the highest quality and most consistent translation.
A quality translation service provider should be able to tell you about the qualifications and expertise of its translators, project managers, linguistic revisors, IP administrators and quality assurance staff. In addition, they should have a dedicated in-house team available to meet your needs on any timeline.
On the technology side, questions to ask a potential service provider include how technology is integrated into the process and what quality control checks they use. When properly integrated, technology such as a secure database of terms in a portfolio can help provide not only accurate translation of a single patent but also consistency of terms across an entire IP ecosystem.
Finally, the translation technology and experts should be backed by consistent quality control processes.
A quality assurance workflow will ensure accuracy at every step of translation. Ask potential translation providers questions including whether the provider is accredited by an established quality control organization like the International Organization for Standardization and whether and how the translation process is audited.
For more information, we’ve created a complete guide to selecting a patent translation provider. This guide takes an in-depth look at some key factors to consider when choosing the best translation service for your IP portfolio and budget. We understand the value of protecting your most valuable assets, and our aim is to help you entrust them to the right translation provider.
Neil Dagger
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