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.
The EPO and Rospatent also signed an agreement to enhance their co-operation in the area of patent classification, under which
Rospatent will classify its newly published patent applications into the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) used at the EPO.
"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.
Further information:
Sign in
