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Home for ClientsFor ColleaguesPatent TranslationConstructions in the Form [There + Pronoun] in Patents

Constructions in the Form [There + Pronoun] in Patents

by William Lise
(Created December 29, 2009)

A preliminary investigation of 10 years of US patents (1,804,405 patents issued from 1999 to 2008, of which 359,802 were issued to inventors in Japan) reveals the following number of patents that include each of the 70 [there + pronoun] (and, more infrequently, [there + adverb]) constructions as shown in the table below. This investigation ignored the USPTO "stop" terms of this form (thereby, therefore, thereof, and thereto), which are ignored in searching the USPTO database.

therein595,243
thereon333,956
thereafter298,910
therefrom247,773
therebetween211,676
therewith175,164
therethrough147,981
therefor79,060
thereupon21,509
thereinto17,213
thereover13,274
therealong10,803
thereat11,071
therearound10,370
therewithin9,365
thereunder8,824
thereabout8,635
thereabove5,625
therebelow5,462
thereacross4,197
thereagainst3,938
therebeneath2,044
thereonto1,941
thereabouts1,320
therepast1,082
thereamong1,060
therebehind1,027
thereinside912
therebeyond563
thereshown320
therebefore315
thereatop273
theretowards256
thereadjacent184
thereas159
thereoff133
theretogether96
theretoward68
thereoutside58
therebeside57
therethroughout56
therevia50
thereunderneath41
thereinstead39
thereaboard32
thereattached32
thereahead27
thereamongst24
thereopposite17
thereapart14
theredown12
thereduring9
theresurrounding9
therealongside7
therenear7
therewithout6
thereback5
therefollowing4
thereup4
thereinunder4
thereaft4
thereaside4
thereinfront3
therefront3
therealone2
therebottom2
theredefined2
therelike1
thereregarding1
thereastride1

I did a further investigation of the constructions with the top 10 occurrences from 1999 to 2008 year to see if there was any difference in frequency of occurrence between the 359,802 patents that were presumably translated from Japanese (based on the country of the inventor as noted in the issued patents) and the overall universe of 1,804,405 patents, the results being summarized below.

Term No. of Patents
of 1,804,405
Patents Including
the Term

FO

% of All Patent
Including
the Term

No. of Patents
of 359,802 Patents
Translated from
Japanese Including
the Term

FJ

% of Patents
Translated from
Japanese Including
the Term

FJ/FO

Frequency of
Occurrence in
Japanese Patents
Relative to
Frequency of
Occurrence in
All Patents
Including the Term

therein595,24333.0%141,96039.5%1.20
thereon333,95618.5%97,92427.2%1.47
thereafter298,91016.6%113,41331.5%1.90
therefrom247,77313.7%53,40714.8%1.08
therebetween211,67611.7%70,47019.6%1.68
therewith175,16411.7%36,47210.1%0.86
therethrough147,9818.2%26,9877.5%0.91
therefor79,0604.4%30,0068.3%1.89
thereupon21,5091.2%5,2871.5%1.25
thereinto17,2131.0%10,4752.9%2.90

As can be seen from the above results, for many of the top 10 constructions, the frequency of occurrence is significantly higher in patents that have presumably been translated from Japanese. Translators with experience in handling the locutions that occur in Japanese patents might guess some reasons for this inordinately high occurrence in patents translated from Japanese.

A more-substantial followup study will:

  • cover a signficantly broader range of examples and expand the subject period back to 1976, and

  • investigate the ways these constructions have been used, particularly in translating Japanese patents to English.