Last week Google announced an agreement with the European Patent Office (EPO) to translate approximately 50 million patents using the search giant’s Internet-based translation tool, Google Translate. Google and authorities at the EPO will collaborate to translate patents into 32 different languages.
Patent researchers, scientists and others will be able to conduct searches for patents in German, French and English, the patent authority’s three official languages. The EPO site’s users may then obtain an instant translation of the patent documentation into languages such as Russian, Japanese or Spanish. It’s important to note that these translations are being made available purely for research and information purposes; they are in no way meant to substitute for official patent translations done by professional translators, as mandated by law.
The EPO will grant Google access to all previously translated patents, which amount to some 1.5 million documents in addition to 50,000 new patents per year.
Officials at the patent office expect the project to be finalized by 2014.
For more information, visit EPO.org.
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Google Translate and the Struggle for Accurate Machine Translations
