China Patent Information For Western Users

Huabing Liuliuhuabing@cnipr.com

Intellectual Property Publishing House, SIPO

Main Topics

Chinese patent information: new challenge to us

Language barriers faced by western users

About machine translation

Our efforts

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

Type Invention Patent

Utility Model Design Granted Patent

Total

Published Amount

1,000,000

(approximately)

950,000

(approximately)

700,000

(approximately)

340,000

(approximately)

3,000,000

(approximately)

Year 2004 2005 2006 2007

Filling Amount

130,133 173,327 210,490 149,455

(Jan-Aug)

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

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

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

However, There are Problems of Patent Data……

Poor Quality of English Data

Shortage of effective Search Tools

Lack of Machine Translation

Condition of English Data 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

Poor Translation Sample Missed Information

Translation Mistake

Searching System Contrast

Item Experimenta

l Platform（CN）

IPDL(JP) KIPRIS(KR) CNIPR (Chinese

version)

Number Y Y Y Y

Applicant/ Inventor

Y Y Y Y

Abstract Y Y Y Y

Claims N N Y Y

Search

Entry

Full text N N Y Y

Time Scope Y Y Y Y

Boolean Search

Y Y Y Y

Refine Search

Y N Y Y

Classification

Search IPC FI/F-Term,

IPC IPC IPC

Search

Function Synonym Dictionary

N N Y Y

Bibliographic Data

Y Y Y Y

Legal Status

Y Y Y Y

Drawings N Y Y N

Specification

/Claims

Image Text, Image Text, Image Image

Display

Item

Patent Family

N N N N

Others MT Tool N Y Y N

C-E Patent MT is not So Successful

Patent Information Asymmetry

EP US JP WO others

EP US JP KR othersCNKR

WO

Chinese UserWestern User

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.

MT: Which Approach is More Intelligent

Classical approach

Potential approach

Mixed approach

Human value-added approach

Rule-based MTExample-based MT

Statistic-based MT

Hybrid MTMT+TM

HAMTMAHT

A Prototype of RBMT for C-E Patent Translation

Patent Input

Morphology Analysis

Part-of-speech Tagging

Pre-processing

Phrase Analysis

Syntax Analysis

Grammar Analysis

ConversionSyntax

Analysis

Structure Selection

TerminologySelection

Formatconversion

Output

Rule & Knowledge Base

Dictionary 1

IPC-driven Dictionary

……………

Dictionary 2 Dictionary 3 Dictionary 4

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

Is MT Possible?

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.

Conclusion• At this stage, we can not solve all the barriers in C-

E MT, but human-aided MT can help us.

Blueprint of HAMTPatent Input

Special element tagging

Morphology & syntax analysis

TranslationForecasting

MT

Yes

NoTerm

extraction

Post-editing(Manual)

Pre-processing(Human and machine)

PatentOutput

Cost vs Quality: Where is the Balance?

50

55

60

65

70

75

80

85

90

95

100

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100

Manual Cost(%)

HAMT Quality(%)

The Key is: how to set up the quality standards?

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

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)

Thank You !