China Patent Information For Western Users

1. China Patent Information For Western Users Huabing Liu liuhuabing@cnipr.com Intellectual Property Publishing House, SIPO

2. Main Topics • Chinese patent information: new challenge to us • Language barriers faced by western users • About machine translation • Our efforts

3. Looking at Chinese Patent • Essential Patent Information Resource • Third largest country of patent fillings in 2005 • Fast Increasing Rate • Highest increasing speed in the world • Improving Quality • Service application is increasing sharply • Hotspot：Automobile, Electronics, Natural Medicine

4. What happens in China? • 2007 • Shanghai Stock Index has increased by more than 2 times in 2007 • 17th National Congress of CPC • Attaches greater importance to IP Protection and Technology Innovation • GDP is predicted to rank third in the world. It grew by 11.5% in the first half of 2007. • 2008 • China Patent Law is revised for the 3rd time. • Beijing 2008 Olympic Games

5. Your Needs on Chinese Patent Information • Patent Filling and Litigation in China • Booming economy creates wider IP attention and leads to more IP lawsuit • Patent search is necessary when you prepare to apply patent or litigate in China • Patent Examination • More than 0.5 million patent and 0.9 million utility model (in Chinese language only) • Annual increase of more than 0.1 million patent and 0.15 million utility model (in Chinese language only) • Technical/Competitor Watch • Domestic patent fillings are growing fast

6. Everything is getting better. We all should be prepared for the challenge from China !

7. However, There are Problems of Patent Data…… • Poor Quality of English Data • Shortage of effective Search Tools • Lack of Machine Translation

8. What is in English: Bibliographic Data (invention patent, utility model) Abstract (invention patent only) Legal Status (invention patent, utility model, design ) What is not in English Abstract of Utility Model Claims Description What is missing or wrong Applicant/Inventor Mistranslated/missing Title Missing Abstract Missing Poor Quality Priority item Inefficient Search Condition of English Data

9. Poor Translation Sample • Missed Information • Translation Mistake

10. Searching System Contrast

11. C-E Patent MT is not So Successful

12. Patent Information Asymmetry EP US JP WO KR others EP US JP WO CN KR others Western User Chinese User

13. How to Cross Language Barriers—Commercial Vendors’ Efforts • Improve quality of English data • Develop powerful patent search tools with more effective search entries • Provide Chinese patent research service to western users • Machine translation • Might be a “mission impossible”, but it is up to us to make it possible.

14. MT: Which Approach is More Intelligent Classical approach Potential approach Mixed approach Human value-added approach Rule-based MT Example-based MT Statistic-based MT Hybrid MT MT+TM HAMT MAHT

15. A Prototype of RBMT for C-E Patent Translation Conversion Grammar Analysis Syntax Analysis Syntax Analysis Structure Selection Phrase Analysis Rule & Knowledge Base Terminology Selection Pre-processing Part-of-speech Tagging Format conversion Dictionary 1 Dictionary 2 Dictionary 3 Dictionary 4 Morphology Analysis …………… IPC-driven Dictionary Patent Input Output

16. Barriers of C-E MT • Chinese Language: Ambiguous Grammar • Lack of tense, voice and part-of-speech identifier • Variable expression methods • Contains highly complex logical structure • Problems of Morphology • Word Segmentation • Part of Speech • Terminology • Easy to be affected by small errors • Interpunction mistakes • Wrongly written characters Even a minor error can result in poor translation

17. Pros Updated rules and knowledge Richer terminology Pre-processing The quality is improving. Cons Poor syntax analysis result Insufficient term amount Ambiguous grammar Machine is not smart enough. Is MT Possible? • Conclusion • At this stage, we can not solve all the barriers in C-E MT, but human-aided MT can help us.

18. Blueprint of HAMT Patent Input No Translation Forecasting Special element tagging Morphology & syntax analysis Term extraction Pre-processing (Human and machine) Yes MT Patent Output Post-editing (Manual)

19. Cost vs Quality: Where is the Balance? The Key is: how to set up the quality standards?

20. Our Efforts on Chinese Patent Information－BJ. Zhongxian Tuofang • C-E Patent Machine Translation Project • Aim • Make C-E patent MT useful • Our works • Chinese linguist and NLP experts • Cooperate with China Academy of Science • Three years of R&D • 3.5M IPC-driven C-E dictionary • Large scale syntax rule base tailored for Chinese patent • Achievement • MT can demonstrate high readability levels across certain technology fields • Next step • More terms from patent are urgent in demand • How far we have progressed, we need your suggestion and evaluation

21. Our Efforts on Chinese Patent Information • Optimize English data • Legal Status/Designs complementarity • Missing item translation( such as utility model abstract) • Error Correction • Provide Integrated Chinese patent web service in English • C-PAT search system (Claims and Specification are also searchable) • Patent Translation (manual translation, MT, HAMT) • Patent research service by Chinese experts (Specialized in Chinese patent)

22. Thank You !