Google Translation Nudges Forward
December 27, 2008
I recall a chipper 20 something telling me she learned in her first class in engineering; to wit, “Patent applications are not products.” As a trophy generation member, flush with entitlement, she’s is generally correct, but patent applications are not accidental. They are instrumental. If you are working on translation software, you may want to check out Google’s December 25, 2008, “Machine Translation for Query Expansion.” You can find this document by searching the wonderful USPTO system for US20080319962. Once you have that document in front of you, you will learn that Google asserts that it can snag a query, generate synonyms from its statistical machine translation system, and pull back a collection. There are some other methods in the patent application. When I read it, my thought was, “Run a query in English, get back documents in other languages that match the query, and punch the Google Translate button and see the source document in English.” Your interpretation may vary. I was amused that the document appeared on December 25, 2008, when most of the US government was on holiday. I guess the USPTO is working hard to win the favor of the incoming administration.
Stephen Arnold, December 27, 2008
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