Google To Translate European Patents

An anonymous reader writes "Internet search company Google Inc on Tuesday said it has signed a deal with the European Patent Office (EPO) to use the company's technology to translate patents into 29 European languages that will pave the way for a simplified European patent system. Google's deal, which comes after years of infighting, is expected to make it easier for inventors and scientists from across the continent to access information on patents with the EPO that has 38 member countries."

Comments

Google World Domination

[intellitech]

Coming to a continent near you!

Simple?

[2phar]

The EU requirement to translate all its business into every language of every member state isn't something that makes me think simplicity!

Re:Simple?

[Aeternitas827]

And which is the 'original' language (given that translation can be a bit tricky)?

In the States, for example, some contracts--and not to say that patents are any sort of contract; but to draw a parallel to something where competing versions might differ and become subject to a matter for the courts, who would need a single point of reference--are translated to Spanish, but include a clause that states, more or less, "In the case of conflict between this contract and any translated version, the English version shall be used to resolve any disputes arising from this agreement.". That's (mostly) when dealing with two separate languages; I'm sure, in the EU, the situation is a bit more muddled...

Re:Simple?

[geegel]

Half true. The official language of Vatican City is Italian, the official language of the Holy See is Latin

Re:Simple?

[DarkKnightRadick]

There's a difference. When paving roads you're only going to use one sort of road surface (blacktop asphalt isn't the only option), not 29 different types.

Re:Simple?

[geegel]

Erm... no.Latin really is the official language

As for your other objection, there's actually some meat to it. However you can all blame it to the fact that English is the de facto lingua franca

Some background data

[geegel]

The official EPO release: link

The EU Commission policy that started it all: link

Re:Some background data

[sakdoctor]

Patent 1010101

Dear Aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all, and method for manufacturing same.

Clear language in patents?

[thijsh]

They will inevitably end up with mistranslations like 'computer chips' that become 'las papas fritas con sal de la computadora'. I wonder if they can uphold a patent with these kinds of errors...

Re:Clear language in patents?

[theNetImp]

I was going to say, Google translate is ANYTHING but accurate. My wife (who's Japanese) laughs at some of the things Google comes up with...

Re:Clear language in patents?

[Motard]

They will inevitably end up with mistranslations like 'computer chips' that become 'las papas fritas con sal de la computadora'. I wonder if they can uphold a patent with these kinds of errors...

Translated from English to Japanaese and back again...

Japanese to English translation
The present invention, the method to handle comprises four main way is to write data to the database: one to form the bit encoding is compact and efficient than) to link the file to the file and manipulate data files ready to receive additional data; 3) files above to determine the physical memory address potential for data files, comprehensive sufficiently arbitrary memory is divided into blocks of data are By optimizing available memory space of the media, and 2) to form a single memory medium overall data structure with pointers to link a file, all the physical memory space yet to be fully To take full advantage of search in order to allow all the data required to read the small, 4), wherein the lookup table to generate a block dotted with references to the table is added to track physical disk location-related data is needed to read. The invention further system, the method above, so you can write a fixed-size memory media can be used in the database to another computer system, running on the computer system database that contains the first comprising said that, memory access speed, as is reducing the computing power required to obtain such information density of information that is stored in memory media, to increase still enhanced .
Listen

Actually, I think it's slightly easier to comprehend now.

Re:Clear language in patents?

[icebraining]

That example is especially funny since in European Spanish, computer isn't "computadora" but "ordenador".

Re:Clear language in patents?

[L4t3r4lu5]

I know not what talking about you are. Google with the translating has made vast improvements for world of many people! With increase moving of language between many person, the communicate of patent information is as clear as water in a London river!

Re:Clear language in patents?

[ath1901]

Yes, but that would make the patent more readable. It might even make the patent valid!

Re:Clear language in patents?

[isilrion]

http://groups.google.com/group/shibboleth-users/msg/00591708f5fa479b?pli=1

Good luck with that...

[Ecuador]

It is not easy for me to follow my company's patents when they deal with technologies we use and I am familiar with. I am sure automatically translated versions would be pretty much incomprehensible.

Riiiight...

[Timmmm]

I wonder if they can translate US patents into English...

Re:Riiiight...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if they can translate US patents into English...

Sure, they'll just add the letter 'u' to the word "color".

I take it...

[Simon Rowe]

that they've filled a patent for this technology?

Google Inc

[fremsley471]

Christ, I know it's futile to complain about the summaries, but "Internet search company Google Inc"! Glad I wasn't confused by all the other Googles out there. Any article that feels it has to explain who Google are doesn't really improve the SNR here. Huge chunks of the 7 billion people on this planet won't know what Google do, but they're unlikely to be getting their news online.

European Nations

[andersh]

The situation in Europe is a bit more complex, but not quite the way you imagined.

The EU is not a single jurisdiction, in fact quite the contrary. Despite the common misunderstanding the supranational cooperation only extends so far, the EU is not a federal state. The member nations are sovereign and the courts operate in the national language(s).

The EU itself has to offer translations of its documents in all of the official languages of the member nations, however the same does not apply to any of the member states of course. If citizens of foreign nations, including EU member states, are on trial they have the right of course to an interpreter and translations.

As with all international law, also between European nations regardless of the EU, there is always the question of what the langauge of the original contract says. However as you correctly stated we're talking about patents and not contracts here.

The EU only includes 27 of the total 50 European nations.

Democracy Is Never Simple

[andersh]

No, but they key word was democracy.

Access to official information in your native language is a democratic right [where your language is the official language of said member country of the European Union].

Not A Member

[andersh]

The Vatican is not a member of the European Union.

Only member nations' languages are official.

The European Union is not synonymous with the continent of Europe.

Undemocratic

[ciaran_o_riordan]

Patents should only be enforceable if official versions are available to product developers in a language of the developer's country.

Machine translations will not be considered official, so product developers will have to avoid infringing the original (official) patent which is in some other language. If machine translations are truly there for information purposes only, then that's harmless, but in all proposals so far, machine translations have been proposed because foreign language patents will become enforceable in the target country.

If you infringe a patent, you've broken the law. If the patent was in some foreign language, you are now being held responsible by your country for doing breaking a law which was written in a foreign language. That situation is completely unacceptable.

The state of machine translation:
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Machine_translation_of_patents

This goes for all types of patents, but the problem is particularly acute for software patents because software is often developed by individuals and organisations with little funding, so expecting developers (mass producers) of software to hire translators is more absurd than having the same expectation of mass producers of pharmaceuticals or cars (which are always medium-to-large companies).

http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Why_software_is_different

Re:Undemocratic

[thirtyfour]

Patents are only enforceable in the country in which they are filed. The language doesn't matter. You are complaining about a problem that does not exist.

Re:Spanish, not European Spanish

[icebraining]

Yeah, well, they shouldn't have exported it by decimating and enslaving the natives and force them to speak it.
We did the same thing in Brasil, Africa and Timor, so now we talk European Portuguese instead of simply Portuguese.

ob

[Hognoxious]

I'm going to patent a hovercraft for transporting eels.

Someone will sue

[SoundGuyNoise]

Is there a patent on translating patents?

Underestimating The Amount Of Information

[andersh]

I certainly don't agree with you, it's not logical to believe the Church translates everything of interest.

The European Union and its institutions produces an extremely large amount of information. The Vatican may very well be interested in a wide range of subjects the EU is involved in, however it does not need to translate it to Latin(!)

The Catholic Church is more than capable of conducting its business in Italian or any of the other major official languages of the EU. The documents are already available in Italian. It would be a waste for the Church to even attempt to translate all of the information produced by the EU. They're more interested in understanding and influencing decisions in line with their views. This is about politics, not an archive.

Ecclesiastical Latin is used for edicts and papal bulls issued by the Church, not for every piece of information and communication. Since the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), the Church no longer uses Latin as the exclusive language of the Roman liturgies of the Latin Rite. Even the Catholic Encyclopedia has commented that Latin is starting to be replaced by vernacular languages.

Why not host a shared task instead?

[nickruiz]

There are plenty of machine translation conferences/shared tasks going on that are targeting patent translation (e.g. PatentMT - http://ntcir.nii.ac.jp/PatentMT/). Instead of just handing this patent task to Google, why didn't the European Commission host an MT shared task and give a prize to the winner? There are a lot of decent systems being designed by universities and research laboratories, especially in Europe. Oh, well, at least the European Commission is starting to adopt machine translation.

Y'd think!

[ciaran_o_riordan]

Y'd think!

What you describe is the current situation, but the European Commission has been working on a Community Patent since 2000 which will be published officially only in English and would be valid across the whole EU (of if they don't get agreement on that, it will be opt-in, and 25 out of 27 countries have indicated they'd opt-in). Human translations to French and German would be made (of all or part of the patent), and machine translations for the other 26 languages.

So, there will be a law in Spain, Italy, Poland, etc. saying "It is illegal to do anything described in the EPO's patents". And the EPO will only officially publish the patents in English.

Hard to believe, but that's where we're at now.