Chinese Translation Services for Patent Litigation

Chinese Translation & Mandarin Interpreters for Patent Infringement Cases

English to Chinese translation services and English to Mandarin interpreting services for depositions, inter partes review (IPR) proceedings before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), and ITC hearings play an important role in patent litigation cases. Today’s case- MacNeil Auto. Prods. v. Jinrong (SH) Auto. Accessory Dev. Co., Ltd. 2021– is a patent infringement action consisting of multiple Chinese to English translation issues.
The plaintiffs owned patents pertaining to a vehicle floor tray. The suit was commenced in the Northern District of Illinois against the defendants Jinrong and Rui Dai. The claim was that defendants had infringed on the patents and/or inducement towards infringement.

Chinese-Speaking Defendant Moves to Amend the Answer

There were many different issues in this case including those of jurisdiction. The defendant argued that the Court does not have jurisdiction over this case because the alleged infringement/inducement occurred outside of the United States, namely in China. However, the Court did not accept this argument citing the Patent Act under which an entity may be liable for inducement even if its conduct occurred outside the United States. There were multiple motions made in this case, including the defendant’s motion for Summary Judgment, as well as a motion to leave to amend the answer.

The problem was that in the Answer the Mandarin-speaking defendant had admitted to designing and manufacturing the floor mats which were the subject of the patent infringement claim. The defendant, however, wanted to amend his Answer to basically not admit those actions. The defendant Jinrong attributed the alleged “errors” in the original responsive pleading to the Chinese to English translation issues.

The Court granted the Motion pointing out that there is a liberal standard for revising pleadings. As per the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, leave to amend should be given “freely” when “justice so requires.” As is expected in international litigation, numerous Chinese to English translations will need to be made, and multiple translation-related issues might arise in the process.

Chinese Translators and Mandarin Interpreters at Your Service

Since the subject matter of this case originated in China, there were multiple other English to Chinese and Chinese to English translation-related issues in this case. There was also an email communication, for example, calling for the suspension of the sale due to a possible patent infringement. There were also important documents which had not been translated. The product which was alleged to be an infringement of the patent was noted to have been listed on the ecommerce website Alibaba.com. However, the defendant claimed to have no longer access to the account stating that his former employee was the person who had the requisite information to access it. The defendant apparently tried to reach the employee by text messages and email but did not provide any Chinese to English translation of the text messages and emails. The court was not satisfied with this argument on the part of the defendants. The plaintiff was awarded translator costs for deposing a Mandarin-speaking witness who had testified through an English to Mandarin interpreter provided by the plaintiff.

Given the international nature of this case, both sides were also ordered to meet within 21 days to determine whether the Court should appoint a Discovery Master who is fluent in both English and Mandarin Chinese. A discovery master is usually appointed in complex cases to help resolve discovery disputes and monitor on-going discovery. As has been suggested in this case, often a discovery master will sit in on depositions that are particularly contentious.

Get it touch will All Language Alliance, Inc. to retain court-certified Mandarin interpreters for depositions, and Chinese interpreters for IPR proceedings, and ITC hearings, and to obtain certified translation of evidentiary documents from Simplified Chinese to English, and from Traditional Chinese to English.

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