Interesting post here from a translators mailing list that I subscribe to. I don’t have time to comment in detail, but very interesting in light of some of the current controversies over the appropriate scope of patent law.
I talked to a US patent agent yesterday who told me that there
are actually some people in the US pushing for abandonment of
examination and turning the patent system to a registration-only
system, like they have in France for example. The idea is that
there is such a huge backlog and examiners usually don’t have the
time or the resources to do a proper examination, so validity is
questionable until a patent is contested in court anyway.I don’t think it will come to that anytime soon, but if it does, then
the obvious consequence will be that all those Japanese companies
will shift a lot of the money they spend for prosecution right now to
translation, which would lead to an even greater demand for
patent translation.
You’ve got to be kidding me. I just got done translating my first patent, and that was some tedious stuff! I mean that’s a good thing in terms of work for translators, but can’t there be an increase in demand for translations of animated discussions on world affairs?
As a translator who makes a living working on lively texts about international relations, I’ll thank you very much for keeping out of my sandbox. 😉