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[Patent] Translation as Business

By Cliff Bender

After describing how he came to translation and the transition from wow-you-mean-I-can- get-paid-for-doing-this to the decision to pursue translation as a business, the speaker briefly discussed three ways to find clients (knocking on doors, replying to ads, and introductions) and some of their advantages and disadvantages. He then offered some suggestions about how to keep and develop the client. These included:

• Deadlines: meet deadlines & keep the client informed if adjustment needed
• Quality: but remember, quality of translation is often in the eye of the beholder
• Build trust so that client has confidence in your abilities
• Deal with problems promptly, professionally
• Phone, fax, e-mail may be enough, but sometimes best to sit down in person
  * can be expensive, require travel, but this is business
  * being able to speak the language instills confidence in your abilities
• Build a stable of at least several steady clients
• Make yourself available, keep client informed well in advance of when you will not be available
• Set your fee based on your abilities, income requirement -- and don't forget the market
• Bill regularly and diligently. And track payments received.
• Learn how to say no. And do it. (Why is that "urgent" job coming back for questions three weeks later?)
• Know that you are a self-employed businessman, not a temporary employee of the client. 
• Familiarize yourself with tax issues, retirement funding, other mundane but necessary tasks unless you never want to retire.
• Refine your client list. Criteria may differ, but every translator should at least consider (1) how easy the client is to work with, (2) rate, (3) work volume, and (4) constancy of work flow. 
• But remember, it's ONLY business. So get a life. 
  
  

Quality: in the eye of the beholder?

To the question of whether accuracy and correctness mean something different in patents and product literature, the speaker offered a short answer: no. He said that what differs are the requirements and expectations of the client, and the services the translator provides, emphasizing the view that translation is a professional service business. 
For example, assume you are translating a product manual for a VCR to be sold in the United States. The manual was edited from the Japanese edition -- but no one changed 100 V to 110 V. As a translation service provider, you could (1) leave 100 V as 100 V because your translation is correct -- that's what the Japanese says. Or you can (2) provide the additional service of changing it to the voltage of the destination market with a note to the client (if necessary). It is important to finish the translation to the requirements and needs of the client -- within certain parameters. 
Relating this general question about translation as business to patent translation in particular, the speaker described three different types of consumers (clients) of patent translation for filing from his own practice. Discussion with examples showed how style can be changed to translate a single passage three different "correct" ways to meet individual client needs and expectations. 

The important stuff

More than 20 of those assembled then proceeded to a nijikai in a Chinese restaurant.

Speaker Profile 

Cliff Bender started translating as a way to get paid for improving his Japanese prior to returning to graduate school. He decided instead to pursue translation full-time. After 14 years in Japan, the Bender family moved to the United States in 1991. Patent translation, primarily for filing in the United States, now accounts for substantially all of his work. He has been translating for 20 years

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