Gateless Gate! Patents getting lost in translation

Back in high school, my passion of French and learning it as my second official language came to quite a tragic short term demise when I change school for the next four years and limited to the option of Arabic and German. As a 12 year old, I did not know that these languages ever existed in the country’s school system, in addition to the little workings of the young minds I never thought I could take up Arabic and see myself on official and business meets with Saudi Arabia Royalties or Morocco or Egypt. But I was aware of the fancy I would like to own came from Germany. Seated at the back of my class, my brain always went numb, mostly terrified and sweating plasma never knowing when the teacher might pick on you. Seating quiet and looking observant and attentive probably was the wrong move to try and avoid the tutor’s attention and I was counted down the time as the clock ticked down till the bell rung.

I had a throwback moment reminiscing on those memories as I was digging into research on translations gone bad. With no intent to pass judgment or insult, but these are comically bad translations and I emphasize comically! Some of the translations turn to sound like koans in Zen Buddhism, these are phrases given to the novice monastic to brood over for years until they prove to the master they have grasped the depth of the statement.

A few examples of such translation epic fails include the Pepsi Original: “Come alive with Pepsi!” which was translated “Pepsi bring your ancestors back from the dead!” in Chinese. When Hillary Clinton started her term as Secretary of State by giving the Russians a button saying that it expressed her deepest feelings about them, unfortunately, rather than saying ‘reset’ as intended, it was apparently translated into the Russian equivalent of ‘Your Momma.’  

About patent translation

Researching original works involves searching through patents and if / when you come across foreign patents that describe something similar to your idea, you will need to have them translated. In patent translation, the translations should be faithful to the original and

If the translator chooses slightly different words than those used in the original patent, either through carelessness or with best intention to make the target text flow smoothly, you may get the wrong idea all the same.

The most vital aspect of protection of intellectual property internationally is an accurate translation. A translation error can be a huge significance that if one word is left out of a list – and if that word just happens to be the focus of the invention at hand – you will believe that your idea is novel when in fact, it is not. A patentee or firm should evaluate a professional translator against a number of criteria such as:

-          Sufficient experience in patent translation

-          Necessary technical background

-          References from satisfied clients

That’s just the beginning because performing a good translation requires more like how the translator works on translations and the procedures they follow. The number of times the translator will proofread before the translation is finalized. 

This criterion is an answer to curbing patent translations riddled with errors even without being a native speaker in the related respective language.