The Wise Warrior Avoids the Battle

(I borrowed the title of my post today from The Art of War by Sun Tsu, a book written by a Chinese general, military strategist, writer and philosopher, 544-496 BC).  

I sometime receive requests to quote a price for a patent translation from all kinds potential customers, some of them a little shady. That is I either ignore some of them, or ask them for full payment in advance, which almost always means that I never hear from them again.

Good riddance, I always think.

Here is a part of what the latest patent inventor that I ignored wrote to me.

“Dear Sir or Madam, [my name is not actually Sir or Madam, so he must have sent it to a lot of people to find the cheapest bid].

I’m looking for an experienced software patent translator to translate my patent application from English to Japanese.

It would be great if you can give me guarantees related to the two points mentioned below.

1- “Understand Patent Law:
Patent laws vary from one country to another, so the legal translator should be well-versed in Japanese regulations. A Japanese translator has to do more than just change the language on patent documents. If it’s an application procedure or lawsuit, the translator must comprehend the corresponding regulations. He/she should understand the structure of the document and its relevance to certain processes. A skilled translator should know which of Japan’s patent laws apply in varying circumstances.”

2- “Accuracy
Another element that characterizes a good Japanese patent translator is accuracy. As with any other legal field, patent law is full of jargon that can easily get lost in translation. Mistaking even a single word can alter the entire meaning of a document. Such errors can result in severe legal consequences. There is also the risk of conflicts, misunderstandings, and financial penalties. Besides the legal jargon, a translator should be able to place location context correctly when converting patent documents. Location-specific references in patent papers can influence the patent application process heavily. Translators should also be up to date on technologies and cultures that may affect the accuracy of their translations.”

Your quick reply will be greatly appreciated.”

When I googled the text above, I quickly discovered that the guy simply copied (without attribution) all of it from boastful, smooth, but very vague propaganda contained among other verbiage in the “guarantees” of other miraculous qualifying characteristics of “its translators” on the website of a translation agency that has very a pretty website. The problem that I see here is that this text has been written by somebody who in my opinion has no understanding of what a patent translator really does and must know, as the text was probably originally written for a patent law firm’s website, and then it was copied and used for the usual propaganda on a translation agency’s website.

I think that it is likely that this text was “purloined” from the website of a patent law firm because these are characteristics of a good patent lawyer, not really a patent translator. And a good patent translator is not necessarily a good patent lawyer, just like a good patent lawyer would not necessarily be a good patent translator, because although these two jobs share some similarities, they are also quite different.

I did not want to further waste any more of my time trying to track down the “provenance” of the text because life is short and then you die. But I did notice that although this translation agency has a well designed website, at least from the viewpoint of what a modern graphic design should look like, the website only had an email link and a phone number, but no actual address. So the translation agency could be located just about anywhere, although Chindia would be my guess.

About 20 years ago when many websites of brand new translation agencies from China started appearing on the internet, I found one that copied not only a lot of the text of my own website, but also stole the actual design of my website. It took me a lot of time to think of what to put on my website back then, some two decades ago and the Chinese translation agency obviously saved a lot of time when they simply stole my idea, along with the ancient design. I have been meaning to update for about the last 15 years, but never quite got around to it …. which probably means that since I have all the work I want, it does not need updating yet … maybe in another 15 years if I am still around.

There used to be a saying that on the on the internet, nobody knows that you’re a dog. There could now be a new one, namely that on the internet, everybody knows when you steal something and where you stole it from.

I tried to find a little bit more about the patent software inventor, but the only thing that told something about him, such as whether he would likely have enough money to pay for an expensive translation of a very long patent, all I could find was several references to his Linked-in profile.

Which was not very impressive, if I may say so.

Being mindful of what a wise Chinese general wrote some twenty five centuries ago, I decided not to fight the battle to win over this potential customer.

Although I often have to fight battles to win over a new customer, some battles are best avoided, and this was one of them.