Pluto: Automated Solutions for Patent Translation John Tinsley, DCU, Ireland

Abstract

A significant portion of the costs incurred during the patent application process are for translation. As language barriers are no excuse in cases of infringement, translation is frequently required, for example, during prior-art searches and when establishing freedom to operate. These costs may also be prohibitive to SMEs and inventors wishing to enter a new market. Additionally, when translations are outsourced, the translators - typically patent agencies, attorneys - are reluctant to use cumbersome translation tools such a translation memories (TM), or machine translation (MT) technology of questionable quality.

PLuTO is an EU supported venture aimed at developing automated high-quality solutions for patent translation. In this talk, we will describe some of the approaches we take in PLuTO aimed at reducing the aforementioned costs through the provision of efficient, unintrusive online tools, integrating MT and TM technologies, that users (IP specialists, translators, etc.) can exploit on-the-fly, in their everyday workflows, to increase the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of their IP related activities.

Speaker Biography

John Tinsley (Ph.D., Computing) is currently the co-ordinator for European Commission-supported PLuTO project. Based out of Dublin City University in Ireland, he manages the technical operations of the Europe-wide consortium and collaborates with IP specialists on developing state-of-the-art solutions for patent translation. Prior to this, Dr. Tinsley worked as a Commercial Development Engineer and a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for Next Generation Localisation where his work focussed on engaging with potential customers interested in finding solutions to automate their in-house localisation processes. Dr. Tinsley received his Ph.D. in Computing (Machine Translation) from Dublin City University in 2009.