Saving Money when Filing Patents in Japan

A high tech firm (Company K) files dozens of patents in Japan each year. Their procedure had been to have the patent law firm in Japan handle the whole project, but they eventually realized that the cost of translation was much higher than what they were paying to have us translate other technical documents for them. They learned that this was not only due to the strength of the Yen (at that time 80Y to the dollar), but also due to the additional markup the Japanese law firm added to the cost of translation (even though it was done by an outside contractor in Japan.) We explained to the client that the team we use for into-Japanese patent translation are native speakers of Japanese, are highly technical (in several cases, PhDs), and have extensive experience with the unique work of drafting patents in a form that satisfies Japan’s rules on terminology and format.

The Japanese law firm initially resisted Company K’s plan to use the JTT team, but after we did a no-cost sample which exceeded the Japan side’s standards, they acquiesced. Since then we have worked closely and smoothly with the Japanese law firm while saving Company K a lot of money.