Over the past six years, the European Enterprise Awards have served, and continue to serve, as a benchmark and reliable guide for identifying the top companies operating within the vast and diversified European market.

Winning the award for best translation and writing services provider represents for us further confirmation of our commitment to consistently surpassing the highest standards to ensure all our clients receive reliable and top-quality linguistic services.

Our linguistic services

For those who are not yet familiar with us, our company mission is to support our clients in every phase of their projects, providing tailor-made linguistic solutions to meet their diverse needs.

Our services primarily focus on four main sectors:

• Medical and Life Science
• Intellectual Property
• Legal and Juridical
• Technical and Scientific

For each of them, we offer professional translation services, technical and regulatory writing, and interpretation. To complement our offering, we also provide services related to subtitling, voice-over, graphic design, and technical drawing.

Thanks to our team of professionals and our attention to detail, we ensure impeccable results that conform to the highest standards. We guide our clients throughout the entire process of internationalising goods and services, enabling them to successfully achieve their goals in a global and competitive environment.

Finally, we are always ready to listen to our clients’ requests and offer personalised advice and support, ensuring a comprehensive service capable of exceeding their expectations.

L'articolo ASTW Wins European Enterprise Awards 2023 proviene da ASTW.

‘Bro’, ‘eco-ansia’, ‘dissing’ ‘Balaclava’, and ‘putiniano’ are just a few of the new words that have become part of our daily lives.

Why, though? The first concept necessary to better understand these linguistic changes lies in the very nature of all natural languages, which is that they are in a constant state of evolution.

The causes of this perpetual change are manifold, ranging from the influence exerted by social and cultural shifts, both national and international, to technological progress, from new discoveries to geopolitical dynamics.

A tangible demonstration of this evolution is precisely the introduction of these and other neologisms, understood as new words or new meanings attributed to existing and commonly used words. Capable of faithfully reflecting the real usage of the language by speakers.

These can be created to describe new concepts and adopt terminologies from emerging scientific or technological fields, as well as to express new nuances of thought and common sensibility. They can also stem from word mergers, adaptations of linguistic loans from other languages, or abbreviations that have become common in everyday use.

The introduction of neologisms into dictionaries is essential to keep the representation of spoken and written language up to date. The entries in these volumes must reflect the current and authentic use of the language.

Dictionary editors must, therefore, pay attention to the evolution of language and be ready to recognize and incorporate neologisms that gain significant diffusion and stability in usage, overlooking new terms considered ‘ephemeral.’

The Italian Neologisms of 2024

With this necessary preamble concluded, let’s now review some of the Italian neologisms included in the Zingarelli Dictionary for the year 2024.

Adultismo: [from ‘adulto’ with the suffix ‘-ismo,’ following the model of the English term ‘adultism’; 1959] n. 1 Discriminatory attitude towards younger individuals, deemed, due to lack of experience, incapable of acceptable opinions and behaviors. 2 In pedagogy, treating a child or adolescent as if they were an adult, imposing behaviors and interests inappropriate for their age. Adultism.

Agrivoltaico or Agrovoltaico: [composed of ‘agri-‘ (or ‘agro-‘) and ‘voltaico’; 2012] A adj. (pl. m. -ci) Describing the use of energy produced by photovoltaic systems in agriculture. B n. The related technological sector. Agrivoltaic.

Eco-ansia or Ecoansia: [composed of ‘eco-‘ and ‘ansia’; 2015] n. (feminine) Anxiety arising from the fear of possible consequences of environmental disasters related to the climate emergency. Eco-anxiety.

Gamificare: [composed of the English term ‘game’ (V.) and the suffix ‘-ficare’; 2011] v. tr. (I gamify, you gamify) To apply rules and dynamics typical of games and video games in non-gaming contexts (e.g., in education, in communication, etc.). Gamify.

Malamovida: [composed of ‘mala’, feminine form of malo, meaning ‘bad, ugly,’ and ‘movida’; 2013] n. (feminine) (pl. invariable) The set of negative phenomena (loud noises and other disturbances, illegal trade, drug dealing, intoxication, etc.) that often characterize the nightlife, especially in a large city.

Putiniano: [2000] A adj. * relating to Vladimir Putin (1952-), President of the Russian Federation. B adj.; also n. (f. -a) Supporter of V. Putin and his policies. Putinian.

Varista: [from VAR; 2018] n. (m. and f.) (pl. m. -i) In football, a referee assigned to VAR (Video Assistant Referee).

For a more extensive list, we refer you to the Italian article on Il Post.

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L'articolo The Italian Neologisms of 2024: Some New Words of the Future proviene da ASTW.

For all our readers, we report Domenico’s words:

Smart Company: the ASTW experience

Here in Italy, the concept of the “smart company” has struggled to gain traction.

A smart company features a flexible management and working style that balances productivity with the reconciliation of employees’ personal and professional lives. The bulk of Italian enterprises consists of micro and small businesses (those with fewer than twenty employees), frequently engaging in sectors with traditionally intensive manual labor.

Not every company can easily adopt a so-called “smart” work style. For the purposes of this article, it’s important to differentiate between two broad categories:

high manual labor-intensive service companies and companies that rely more on intellectual contribution and require less manual labor. Here, we’ll focus on the latter category, since implementing a “smart” work style is quite challenging for small businesses in sectors like hospitality (restaurants, bars, hotels), let alone those in manufacturing.

Being a smart company isn’t just about pretending to change the rules of the game for marketing or brand awareness purposes. Instead, it’s about carefully considering the anthropological landscape we’re facing and the current trends (especially post-COVID) that are shaping and have already shaped corporate policies, particularly in the realm of human resource management.

Remote work, for instance, presents a significant opportunity for employees (who generally appreciate this work style) and companies (who can reduce expenses on office space and recruit talent from around the world) alike. However, we must also address the issue of employee retention. While remote work offers advantages, it is essential to acknowledge that it may pose risks as well. Without a strong sense of connection and belonging, employees might feel isolated and disconnected, potentially affecting their long-term commitment to the organization. Reducing everything to economic aspects does not seem consistent with the values we hold regarding individuality.

Different Values, Different Companies

Anecdotal and sociological surveys reveal that for younger generations (Generation Z and millennials), work no longer forms the center of life. Here in Italy, the generation that came of age immediately after World War II and the subsequent “baby boomer” generation, however, lived in a socio-economic context marked by significant economic growth. Which spurred rapid economic development.

However, the psychological background and values of prior generations were largely shaped by frugal, often agrarian societies with simplistic and limited consumption styles.

It wasn’t until the 1980s that Italy finally  became a true mass consumer society. This shift became especially evident in 1987, when Italy overtook Britain in GDP, becoming the sixth-largest global economy. Although the shift was short lived, it led to a generational divide in the values held by Italians — a divide that lingers to this day.

While the priorities of previous generations centered on work and children, the newer generations have more varied interests, reflecting the positive changes in Italian society over the past decades. The increased, albeit still relatively limited,  participation of women in the workforce and education, as well as the broader range of life choices and experiences available to today’s youth, represent the benefits of a more affluent and globalized society. It is also undeniable that this positive process has had negative “externalities”. Such as declining birth rates and their current and future impact on economic growth and welfare sustainability.

Companies and entrepreneurs often find it difficult to instill the right motivation in their employees, or as some might say, to cultivate the right “attitude.” In my experience as a CEO of a small company, economic incentives only work when carefully designed and applied to certain personality types, which I suspect are a minority among these age groups. As a result, it’s  crucial to think outside the box. Aligning the company’s values as closely as possible with those of the employees is essential. Not implying a surrender to non-productive work practices but acknowledging and respecting employee values, as employees are indeed the lifeblood of any organization.

Flexible hours, smart working and reduced weekly hours

Once we recognize the importance of aligning a company’s values with those of its employees, it’s necessary to devise a series of incentives that reward not only productivity but also harmonize the company’s production needs with the employees’ life needs. At my company, ASTW, we’ve made an effort to adopt a smart working style by aligning our company values with those of our workers.

For several years now, we’ve implemented flexible hours and unrestricted smart working, meaning that all employees have the opportunity to work remotely from any location and without limitations, including all working hours, without the requirement of physically being in the office. Moreover, our employees have the freedom to manage their own schedules, taking into account the needs of the company and the work of their colleagues. 

This is facilitated through the use of shared calendars and agendas, allowing for effective coordination and collaboration. To enable this, we adopted IT applications and infrastructure (now accessible to all companies) to monitor employee activity and productivity and equip them with the necessary tools to work from any location. The results of this work style have benefitted both the company (in terms of productivity) and the employees (who appreciate such flexibility).

Additionally, ASTW has been experimenting with reduced weekly hours for the past several months, cutting four hours per week for all full-time employees. While ensuring service continuity through careful work scheduling, our team has maintained productivity while simultaneously increasing employee well-being.

The adoption of increasingly affordable technology, coupled with an attentive understanding of employees’ values and needs, is far from a trend or a marketing gimmick. Instead, it proves to be a competitive advantage and employee retention tool in an era caught between quiet quitting and great resignation.

L'articolo SMART COMPANY: ASTW on Multilingual Magazine proviene da ASTW.

Quoting the words of the patent lawyer Dmitry Yakovlev, also reported by the Law Division of the ATA (American Translators Association):

“[…] in the present digital era, translations continue to remain a field of intense intelligence action and, quite literally, an art for a human. This is especially true for patent translations, where accuracy is a must and where the scope of patent protection may be affected by one unfortunately misplaced letter or comma”.

This statement is further confirmed by the decision of the Board of Appeal at the EPO (European Patent Office) regarding the EP2621341B1 patent. Resulted in the revocation of the patent specifically due to the absence of two commas within the claims.

The Most Common Errors In Patent Translation

Wanting to make a general simplification of the most common errors we can define two macro categories: formal errors and semantic errors.

The first category includes the ones often considered milder and easily detectable, although they are inaccurate in all respects. They are also the most common errors and mainly concern the typographic sphere of the text.

If the translator does not notice it during his control phase of the work, these inaccuracies can be easily detected during the revision phase. Were the professional in charge of the task (reviewer) can modify them.

As mentioned earlier, these errors are often regarded as minor due to their relatively easy preventability. However, they should not be underestimated, as they can have a disastrous impact on the patent process, as illustrated in the aforementioned case.

The second category is distinguished from the first by the nature of inaccuracy: semantic errors precisely concern the sphere of meaning.

Assuming that these mistranslations are the result of an incorrect interpretation of the semantic nuances of a given term, elsewhere considered a minor error, they can nevertheless be more insidious.

This is because a small inaccuracy inherent in the meaning of a term will not only be reported at every occurrence in the document (terminological coherence) but will also be more difficult to detect because, precisely, erroneously not considered as a true inaccuracy.

However, a trained reviewer will certainly have the ability to intervene by neutralizing the possible consequences.

The Consequences Of These Errors

Let’s now see what the consequences of errors in patent translation for the owners and applicants could be.

First, we must start by citing the worst-case scenario, which is the negative outcome of the patent application. Which will therefore render the entire process useless and expose our invention to possible use, or even the initiation of a counterfeiting procedure, by a competitor.

The same consequences, even if transferred over time, will lead to the revocation of a patent previously granted following litigation based on translation errors.

A further scenario concerns the lack of protection under the original patent scope, which could make the patent worthless in some countries (those of the target languages in the translation process).

Wanting to give some real examples of harmful consequences caused by errors in patent translation, we quote again Dmitry Yakovlev.

Within a given Russian patent, granted to a company X, the expression “median diameter of the particles” was rendered by the translator as “average diameter of the particles”.

So, the granting of the patent was challenged by a competitor for “lack of novelty and inventive step”. The opposition was accepted by the Russian Patent Office as the application was re-evaluated considering the average, not median, particle size.

The patent has then been invalidated.

Possible Precautions

In this text, we have repeatedly mentioned the figure of the reviewer. This is because, as expressly required by the ISO 17100:2015 standard for translation services, a quality language service provider must guarantee the intervention of a second professional within its workflow.

Often, however, to save on the costs of translating the patent, applicants turn to non-specialized agencies. Or, even worse, to people who do not carry out the activity of translator as professionals.

While it is fair to keep an eye on costs, adopting economic restraint as the sole criterion can expose you to potential risks and huge economic losses.

Relying on an LSP specialized in the field of intellectual property, supported by linguists specialized in patent documents, will reduce the risk of errors and the related economic and legal consequences.

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L'articolo ERRORS IN PATENT TRANSLATION: CONSEQUENCES AND SOLUTIONS proviene da ASTW.

The proposal was presented by Fabio Rampelli, deputy of Fratelli d’Italia and vice-president of the Italian Chamber of Deputies. 

Rampelli pointed out a well-known fact: “According to estimates from 2000 to today, the number of English words merged into the written Italian language has increased by 773 percent. Almost  9,000 are the Anglicisms currently present in the Treccani dictionary on about 800,000 Italian words”.

It didn’t take long for conflicting opinions to arise, with the Accademia della Crusca (the foremost linguistic authority in the country) being among the first to express their stance.

“The proposal to sanction the use of foreign words by law, with a fine as if you had passed through the red light, risks nullifying and marginalizing the work that we, as Crusca, have been conducting for years in order to defend Italian from the excesses of grossest xenophilia.”

This criticism was followed, among others, by the representatives of Movimento 5 Stelle, who highlighted how it is precisely the FdI-headed government that has established the Ministry of “Made in Italy”, using the English expression.

English in Italy and the Italian Bill

A mandatory use of the Italian language in public administration, to access goods and services and any public communication. Mandatory presence of interpreters and obligatory use of translation services for every event and conference held in the Italian territory. Exclusive use of the Italian language in employment contracts and prohibition of foreign acronyms or names to identify company roles.

Otherwise, the administrative penalties will range from 5,000 to 100,000 euros. These are the salient features that have emerged in recent weeks and have been disseminated by the media and news channels.

The full Italian text of the bill can be viewed at this address: 

Provisions for the Protection and Promotion of the Italian Language and Establishment of the Committee for the Protection, Promotion and Enhancement of the Italian Language.

Within the eight articles of the text presented to the Chamber of Deputies, we read how the measure arises from the desire to protect our own language, comparing the efforts made so far with the actions taken by other countries.

“Switzerland has four official languages and a rich heritage of dialects. Since Italian is spoken only by 8.1% of the population and is in the minority compared to German (63.5%) and French (22.5%), the Federal Council has made the promotion of Italian a priority. In Italy there is no linguistic policy. Indeed, the language of politics in the new millennium has become increasingly anglicized by introducing foreign words into laws”.

We talked about Swiss multilingualism in Multilingual countries – Switzerland.

Slator’s Survey

The proposal involved not only national realities, but also linguists and authoritative figures from all over the world.

Slator asked its readers, through its newsletter, if they felt it was right for a government to legislate on the use of national languages. The  majority of respondents (69.2%) voted against the proposal, 17.3% in favor, and the remainder said “it depends on the involved language”.

Today, we want to expand this survey by proposing it to all our readers. What are your thoughts? Let us know your opinion in the comments sections of our social channels!

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L'articolo THE ITALIAN BILL ON THE USE OF ENGLISH IN ITALY proviene da ASTW.

Translated is an Italian language services company, based in Rome, founded by entrepreneur and IT expert Marco Trombetti. In 2014, Translated began developing its own machine translation software (CAT Tool) called Matecat. Benefiting from funding provided by the European Union and collaborating with important entities such as the Fondazione Bruno Kessler, the University of Edinburgh and the Université du Maine.

It is precisely using the computer-aided translation tool (Matecat) that the team of Translated came up with a whole series of data and variables to quantify the progress made by machine translation, measuring the speed at which we approach the singularity.

THE STUDY ON SINGULARITY OF MACHINE TRANSLATION

The results of this study were presented at the Association for Machine Translation in the Americas 2022. In order to carry out the research, the team first determined which variables would best determine quantity and quality of machine translation.

Over the past few years, the most widely established practice has been the use of the BLEU (Bilingual Evaluation Understudy) index, which, however, as mentioned in one of our previous articles:

“[…] gives a qualitative score to translation outputs. Although the benchmark allows comparison of the progress of different machine translation models, it does not offer an absolute measure of the software’s ability to achieve human quality.”

The Translated research group shares the same view, which believes that this benchmark “would not place the proper value on the translator’s cognitive effort.” For this purpose, a variable was introduced that could best represent the quality level of MT: Time to Edit (TTE).

The variable TTE refers to total time applied by the translator while controlling and editing pre-translated texts, divided by total word counting. Basically, it is measured the time a linguist takes to perform a translation in order to tangibly evaluate the necessary effort needed for a good-quality translation. 

Not for the first time, in order to assess the quality of a translation, the parameters of the so-called “human evaluation” have been used; in fact, such an initiative was proposed and undertaken in mid-2022 by Meta.

OUTPUT FROM TRANSLATED

“We all realize that we are approaching the singularity in AI. For the first time, we have been able to quantify how fast we are approaching it.”

The CEO of Translated commented, with these words, about the chart concerning breakthrough on machine translation singularity based on artificial intelligence. That is, the time when machine translation will equal the output achieved by human translators.

Going further with Trombetti’s statement, “The TTE data show a surprisingly linear trend. If this trend continues to decline at the same rate as in previous years, we expect to reach a point in the near future, where MT will provide what could be called a perfect translation”.

Understanding “a perfect translation” as a machine translation output that takes the same amount of time for a linguist to check a translation done by their colleagues.

Nevertheless, this should not frighten human translators.

The singularity of machine translation should not be interpreted as the point at which the human translator will have to step aside. Instead, it is seen as a milestone to aim for in order to be able to increase one’s productivity, as well as the quality of the final product. We should remember that any translation will always need the intelligence, creativity and choices of human beings.

What do you think? Do you believe it is possible to reach the singularity in the near future? Let us know in the comments of our social channels!

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L'articolo THE SINGULARITY OF MACHINE TRANSLATION proviene da ASTW.

We should not take for granted that every SME, or every inventor – individual – is getting a patent to protect their own work. Not knowing how aware people are about the issue, a quick research took me to the IP Helpdesk of the European Commission page. According to the European Intellectual Property Office, EUIPO, European Small and Medium Enterprises, i.e. SMEs, account for 99% of all companies, created 85% of new jobs in the last years, and overall two thirds of the employment in the EU.

On the other hand, according to EPO, European Patent Office, around 21% of the patent applications filed were registered by SMEs and individual inventors. Plus 5% considering universities and public research organizations, from which spun off SMEs to market new technologies. All in all, SMEs which protect their IP rights “have reported a significant improvement in their reputation, creating an image of trustworthiness, strengthening long-term business prospects and increasing turnover.” Our SMEs have an eye for tech innovation! 

Protect Your Patent, Protect Your Work

It is not difficult to understand how patenting a touchable invention can be useful and protect the hard work done to reach a result. Taking as an example the heating system of the four friends from Chiavari, they have invented a heating system, submitted it to evaluation, once agreed that the invention introduces an innovation – a solution never before proposed – it is accepted and receives a patent. Done: it is now protected by law. No one can take advantage, neither financially nor in any other way, from the invention or the work of the four friends.

But what happens when patenting an untouchable invention? Like an AI tool? My mind whirled into my past, the time I was working for an Artificial Intelligence start-up, which had created not only their own neural network, their own machine learning, also more specifically a tool to analyze images with a scope. I asked myself, once again: have they ever patented that? Have they ever considered protecting their assets, even these intangible assets, like that tool? What if anyone else copied them, could they prove that they were the real authors? It might be easier with a “thing”, but with technology… how do you protect your work?

My mind revisited again the Global IP confEx fresh memory, and the presentation about the work of Vaultinum, specialized in protection and audit of digital assets. The word “audit” rings the bell for me, for many reasons and unsuccessful stories I have heard and known. Protecting and controlling, checking that protection is working properly, is of utmost importance, in order to prevent others from getting to your core assets and misusing them.

Copyright and Copyleft     

Why should you give access to unknown people to reach the heart of your company, the fundamental work that took you a huge amount of time and effort to achieve? To understand the reason why auditing your digital IP and the protection system implemented, two concepts come in handy: copyright and copyleft. Yes, the devil is in the details.

In geeksforgeeks.org, we can find a comparative definition for both terms. Although the problematic lack of formality around copyright, it gives to the holder an exclusive right to make copies, license, and any other use of the original work. It means that you cannot, for instance, commercially distribute a film on DVD, if you don’t own it. About copyright of a software, it gives the holder the right to integrity of the work and the attribution, besides the right to receiving money for the software usage by others! On the other hand, copyleft is directly related to open source software. It means that the software open source is free for use and all its modified and extended versions are also free. This allows a quick improvement process and, unfortunately, the conversion into proprietary software later in the sequence chain.

The result of the open source software upgrade becomes and starts being distributed as a proprietary product. Going back to the lack of formality issue around copyright, it is difficult to prove which one came first. Interestingly, according to Boston Consulting Global, 99% of Fortune 500 companies currently use open-source software. It is not only an issue related to the proof of “who created what” and protecting their own hard work. It represents a security breach on your company’s heart, since part of the code your company uses, is known by people external to your company.

Why you Should Protect Your Patent Multilingually?

Have you ever considered the amount of problems you might have, not checking from time to time whether your assets are really protected or not? Now, consider it multiplied by as many countries as your patent is registered and in force. Beyond the patent claims and description, there are other documents as technical approvals, documents from any litigation, or licensing agreements, and so on. Any legal paper revolving around Intellectual Property might need to be translated, following each set of regulations, in each country, for each scenario.

For companies with either a big or a small international presence, IP protection is as much important as the invention itself. Otherwise, you might lose all the profit coming from your creativity, cleverness and efforts, in more than one language. So, lean on someone who’s helping you to protect yourself in different languages as well. But start by doing what the four friends from Chiavari did: their heating system is patented.

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L'articolo Innovation and why you should protect your patent multilingually  proviene da ASTW.

A definition of Machine Translation is, as stated on Memsource’s blog, an “automated translation by computer software”. Not to be confused though with the acronym “CAT”, which means “Computer Assisted Translation”, a tool that helps translators doing their tasks, dividing the text into chunks, making it more manageable. When it comes to Machine Translation, the process is simple but goes farther: a computer software takes the original text — better called Source —, divides it into chunks — better called Segments —, and finds and replaces these with words, phrases, in the language to be translated — better called Target. Machine Translation can deliver very impressive results, sometimes, with no Human interaction at all. Even though, a user of MT must know very well the source and the target language, besides the subject, according to the case, in order to guarantee a text that, at least, makes sense.

Machine Translation: how does it work?

Many don’t know, but Machine Translation does not date back to late 90’s, or first 2000’s. There is a very long story behind it. The first machines for the Automated Translation in the 1950’s were more like machines than computers, often relying on punch cards. Then, its technological development never stopped, going throughout the years from cards, to a simple substitution of words, a 1-to-1 approach, to what we have today. The past ten years represent the major transformation for the Machine Translation, with the rise of Neural MT.

Nowadays, talking about Machine Translation, there are three different approaches. The first one is “Rule-based”: it uses grammar and language rules, besides glossaries, that can be customized to a specific subject. It looks like this:

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A translation done using this methodology takes into consideration, for instance, the position of the verb in the phrase, the use of plural, subject-verb agreement, etc. The second is “Statistical”: in this case, the machine “learns” how to translate, not according to language rules, but following a comparative analysis of a large amount of existing human translations.

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Neural Machine Translation: the wider the amount, the better

The third is the “Neural” type. It looks like as follows:

_{Image source: freecodecamp.org}

By using a large neural network, the Neural Machine Translation “teaches” itself on how to deliver a translation. Its goal, mathematically speaking, is to estimate (not determine, but find a probability to) an unknown conditional distribution P (y|x) given the dataset D, where x and y are variables, representing source input and target output. There are two types, the Encoder-Decoder Model and the Encoder-Decoder with Attention. Both models are multilayer.

They follow a sequence for both input and output, executing and re-executing different calculi to get the result that fits better the desired final representation of the natural language.

Following the latest advances of AI, Machine Learning and Deep Learning, machines are always more and more capable of delivering great results. Beyond the computing capacity and its ability of storing glossaries without “forgetting” them, as humans normally do, Machine Learning and Deep Learning represent a technology that took Machine Translation to the next level. Today, it represents significant advantages, as time-saving, scalability, and cost-effectiveness. On the other hand, the sole Machine Translation may not be for every case. Wherever creativity, idiomatic expressions, adaptation, etc., must be put into place, a human hand on the project is more than necessary, it is essential. In conclusion, human translation or, at least, Post-editing — when the human comes in, after the Machine Translation —, is still the gold standard for the best quality in translation services.

_{Source: Memsource | MemoQ | Smartcat | Machine Learning Mastery | Science Direct
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L'articolo Machine or automated translation: how does it work? proviene da ASTW.

God’s reaction to the Tower of Babel’s construction could be an amusing explanation not only for the naissance of different languages, but also for the need itself of understanding each other. “Come, let us go down and confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” Should we thank God for translators? Or maybe the origin is not exactly there.

In “A short history of translation through the ages” by Marie Lebert, the origin of the human activity in “speaking across” — from the term in Ancient Greek, “metaphrasis” — goes way back in time. Many icons for the art of translation were discovered around the world, being the oldest the Sumerian “Epic of Gilgamesh” (c. 2000 BCE), an epic poem from Ancient Mesopotamia considered as a “great survivor” of the literature of translation. Another old icon called “Treaty of Kadesh” (1274 BCE), an ancient bilingual Egyptian-Hittite treatise, but the most known is the Rosetta Stone. An inscription with a decree issued in 196 BCE, discovered in Egypt, that finding helped later scholars to decipher Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.

THE ANCIENT TIMES

Going back to God and the Bible. Its translation into Greek in the 3rd century BCE is considered as the first major translation in the Western world. The translation known as the “Septuagint” due to the seventy translators to whom the translation was commissioned. The legend says they were working separately, but provided texts that were exactly the same, which makes us think about automatic machine translation… Kind of ironic!

However, linked to the origin of translation as a task, there is as well as the debate around literal translation: starting around the same time, the word-for-word translation was already a “problem”. Jerome, or Saint Jerome, best known for his translation of the Bible into Latin (later known as “Vulgate”), stated that the translator needed to translate “not word for word but sense for sense”. Cicero, in “On the Orator” (“De Oratore”, 55 BCE), also advised: “I did not think I ought to count them [the words] out to the reader like coins, but to pay them by weight, as it were”. It is to him that we owe the comparison between the translator’s work to that of an artist.

The type of text translated changed throughout time. Many works were translated though from kings and scholars, from religious and non-religious figures, from Greek and Latin into English, into German, etc., from Greek to Arabic — during the Arabic domination — and Spanish and other languages. Many Arabic texts, as well as texts in Latin and Hebrew, were translated by a range of scholars of different faiths. 

FROM TIME TO TIME, FROM A LANGUAGE TO ANOTHER

The invention of the printing press by Gutenberg helped to widen the production and consumption of writing works. Geoffrey Chaucer stands out as a poet and translator of the fourteenth century, translating original pieces from French and Latin, the cult languages of his time. He contributed to the use of Middle English as a literary language during the Middle Ages. More or less at the same time, but in another country, German priest Martin Luther started his revolution, translating the Bible into German. In England, by the end of the 15th century, when Thomas Malory translated Le Morte Darthur, considered an example of adaptation, rather than a translation. The sense-for-sense translating approach continued for centuries. With the belief of a translation in their own style preferably, rather than sticking to the words of the text.

Contemporary translators have helped to shape the languages into which they have translated, enriching the target language, from time to time, from a language to another. In “The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation”, Lawrence Venuti states the historical power of translators, which forced massive changes and led to evolutions in literature and academic theory, influencing the vision of different cultures.

Studying translation nowadays includes studying many fields (comparative literature, computer science, history, linguistics, philology, philosophy, semiotics, terminology), plus, the “speciality” (legal, economic, technical, scientific, literary). Anyway, as we could see, the actual practice seems to have hardly changed since the Antiquity. Except for a few, the majority of translators shown flexibility in seeking equivalents while exercising their activities, using metaphrases where possible, and paraphrases where necessary. We may never build again a Tower of Babel. Thanks to translators, though, we can understand each other.

_{Source: IAPTI, Tomedes., Wikipedia}

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L'articolo From a Language to Another: The Story of Translation proviene da ASTW.

An event, such as the Global IP ConfEx, represents a golden ticket to a day around professionals with whom we can exchange and review ideas and concepts of matters we deal with in a daily basis. The event of Stephen Walia, Ceric Matthews, and friends, took place at the Queen Elisabeth II Centre in Westminster, London, and gathered not only lawyers. Other two translation agencies besides us, patent agents, head of IT Legal, cybersecurity engineers, etc.

Surely, nothing compares to the opportunity of listening, and talking, and questioning professionals and learning from them. In these events, participants have a view of the “behind the scenes” in the world of Intellectual Property. We, Translators, can grow in knowledge for our work. And we, People, can grow in knowledge to be better and understand better the world we live in. Taking as an example the problematic around Covid-19 vaccines, medicines, diagnoses, one of the matters largely discussed was the Covid-19 patent waiver.

The Covid-19 patent waiver

To waive or not to waive? This is not the only question. An item of the agenda of Covid-19 pandemic is the difficulties in obtaining the vaccines for poor countries. Dr. Duncan Curley, from Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP introduced a great question about the real need and fairness of the patent waiver requests by countries, as for example, South Africa and India. According to the ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations, as per June-September 2022, in African countries, 20% average of the population is vaccinated against Covid-19. Nonetheless, is it only a matter of vaccines, medicines, diagnostic tools’ price? Is a patent waiver for production procedures the solution of this issue?

It can surely help in a certain way. But there are many other factors as the lack of professionals trained to use and apply these tools; the logistics, how to reach certain points of the continent, among others, related to Africa. Besides, related to wealthy countries, some factors must be considered, as the misuse of investments from both private and public bodies — cases where investments in vaccines and medicines for Covid-19 were 6 times higher from the public side than the private. Public policies created to privilege the domestic market, in detriment of foreign markets of low-income countries, who would receive the surplus, whenever there was a surplus. Interestingly, during the coffee break, we could talk, developing new ideas and opinions about this subject to others who also found the presentation fascinating.

The other two presentations were not directly related to Covid-19, but, as in a flow of thought, Roberto Valenti from DLA Piper, and later Philippe Thomas, the founder of Vaultinum, introduced the participants to the need of protection. Mr. Valenti talked about the need of protecting trade secrets by enterprises, besides the caring of data which the company may release to the public — collaborators, workers, maybe people who need, though, do they really need to know? — without considering the danger behind the lack of secrecy.

Global IP ConfEx 2022 and trade secrets

In a panel later, Giovanna Vigano (Mastercard), Abraham Mertens (Arista), and Andrea Ruggieri (Digital Legal Forum) reiterated the same need of secrecy for patents. They remembered that for any kind of work to be registered, for both big and small enterprises, and for inventors, secrecy is key to be able to register a patent. Not taking care of how something is done inside the company may lead to situations as, shown by Mr. Valenti, collaborators taking useful information to competitors. Just to find out later that a machine, a procedure, a software, was copied by someone else. 

Better safe than sorry. Such expression summarizes the core idea cited before. Companies who want to protect themselves need to consider protecting also their objective IP data. As a case study of the event, Events4Sure brought Vaultinum to the stage, where the founder, Mr. Thomas, addressed the value of intangible assets. These can be easily copied. An IP data safeness evaluation with focus on third party software products and open-source software products must be taken into consideration. These could be used as opened backdoors for hackers to steal core information from companies, therefore, tools are needed to scan and evaluate possible breaches on data stored in servers. Ideas, concepts, long hours and hard work, energy. Intangible assets can be easily copied by others; for this reason, they must be constantly monitored.

Intellectual Property and Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence is an example of an intangible asset. All AI-based technology have to be patented, however, what’s the definition of AI? And what is an AI-related invention? One of the definitions given in the panel shared among Rachel Free (CMS, LLP), Gianluca Campus (Sky Italia), Matt Hervey (Gowling WLG) and Michael Williams (Marks & Clerk) was “Math technics to perform tasks”. However, one thing well known that is not patentable is Mathematical procedures. Patents for the Artificial Intelligence world are difficult to obtain for many reasons, being one of them the difficulty in establishing what can and cannot be patented.

There are different concepts overarching different regulations in different regions. Maybe, instead of protecting AI, protecting the output? However, is it a practical issue? Most of the cases linking Intellectual Property and Artificial Intelligence were never address, even though Artificial Intelligence exists since the 1940s! As a conclusion, we can think of a lack of discussions about the matter.

Not only a lack of discussion, though. Other speakers, not only the ones above, talked about the need to “teach our clients”. Going back to us, Translators, we have this clearly in mind. The need of an everlasting self-education and education of who is working side by side with us. This is what remained for me, one participant among the whole public of the Global IP ConfEx, London 2022: the need to inform and at same time be informed of all the matters around Intellectual Property. Which direct or indirectly affects each one of us. For professional matters and to better understand the world around.

L'articolo When you least expect, you learn: Global IP ConfEx, 2022 proviene da ASTW.