Russian-English machine translation for patents launched; Rospatent to use the CPC classification system
26 September 2013
The EPO today announced the start of two major joint initiatives with the Federal Service for Intellectual Property of the Russian Federation (Rospatent) and the Eurasian Patent Office (EAPO), which will benefit engineers, scientists and industry in both regions.
Meeting in Geneva today, the heads of the three organisations launched the Russian-English component of the EPO's automatic translation service Patent Translate, which will make more than 1.5 million Russian-language patent documents available in English free-of-charge via the EPO's worldwide patent database Espacenet.
EAPO President Grigoriev, EPO President Battistelli and Rospatent Director-General Simonov
"These initiatives are major steps forward in improving access to information on new technologies and harmonising our patent systems, which will boost innovation in Europe and beyond," said EPO President Benoît Battistelli. "The Russian language is an important addition as it is used not only in Russia but by millions of people throughout the Eurasian region."
Breaking down the language barriers
With the launch of the Russian-English component of Patent Translate, for the first time, Russian-language patents are being made available in English in the EPO's worldwide patent collection Espacenet, free-of-charge at the click of a mouse. Especially small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as research institutes, stand to benefit from this enhancement. The tool will also help patent offices improve the quality of their services.
"This new service will provide the
Russian-speaking community and industry with better access to information on
new technologies from all over the world, while making information about their
inventions readily available in English to millions of users worldwide,"
said Boris Simonov, Director General of Rospatent. "This in turn will lead
to further innovation in our two regions."
"The EAPO's participation is a natural
continuation of our efforts to provide access to Eurasian patent documentation for
the world patent community via the EPO's Espacenet," said EAPO President
Alexander Grigoriev. "We hope the Russian-English machine translation tool
will become a valuable component in the creation of a multilingual world
platform of patent information."
With the addition of Russian, Patent Translate now enables free, on-the-fly-translation of patents from, and into, English for 22 languages, including Chinese and Japanese.
Harmonising classification systems
The second agreement signed by the EPO and Rospatent concerns the classification of patent documents. Under this agreement, as of January 2016, Rospatent will start to classify into the CPC patent documents currently being processed, and begin to classify the volume of already published patent documentation as of 2017. The corresponding classification data will be shared with the EPO.
The CPC is the most refined classification system for patent documents in the world (250 000 subdivisions) and was jointly implemented by the EPO and the United States Patent and Trademark Office on 1 January 2013. It is largely based on the European Classification (ECLA) system formerly used at the EPO.
"With Rospatent introducing the CPC as its classification scheme, access to Russian patent documentation will be dramatically improved," said EPO President Benoît Battistelli. "It will make searching patents more efficient for patent examiners and the public alike, and improve the quality of the patent granting process. It is also a significant achievement in terms of harmonisation of our patent systems and the recognition of the CPC as a global system which can be used by many patent offices around the world."
Rospatent Director-General Simonov said: "The introduction of the CPC at Rospatent creates a strong basis for enhancing co-operation between Rospatent and the EPO. We believe that the ultimate goal of such co-operation is the development of high-quality patent examination practices for the benefit of the global IP community."
The CPC is already used by more than 45 patent offices worldwide as a means to perform efficient prior art searches during the patent granting process.
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