Class vs. Instance Differentiation
Technical patent nomenclature often requires the "Indefinite Genitive" (de) to define a component as a type or class, rather than pointing to a specific instance (du/de la). Generic NMT models harbor a "Definiteness Bias," habitually inserting specific articles (du) to improve linguistic fluency. This "Over-Specification" error implies that a generic component belongs to a specific, previously defined antecedent, creating false dependencies and potentially introducing New Matter.
| ID | Error Type | Case Summary | |
|---|---|---|---|
| C3-001 | Over-Specification | Terminology Standardization vs. Grammatical Fluency — "User Equipment". In 3GPP/5G telecoms, "User Equipment" (UE) is a fixed monolithic entity, not a descriptive phrase. Generic NMT engines, biased towards fluency, inserted genitive prepositions (équipement de l'utilisateur or d'utilisateur), treating it as "equipment belonging to a user." This violated the technical standard. The alignment protocol enforces the fixed compound équipement utilisateur (noun juxtaposition), overriding standard grammar to match the industry-defined term. | View PDF |
| C3-002 | Anglicism Trap | Functional Class vs. Anglicism (Calque) — "Target Chamber". Generic NMT models often mimic English syntax (noun juxtaposition) for functional components. The model produced chambre cible (Target-Chamber), creating a "Pidgin Patentese" that implied the chamber is a target. In French technical grammar, a specific housing for a generic component requires the Indefinite Genitive (de) to denote function. The alignment enforced chambre de cible (Chamber of the target type) to correct the grammatical identity. | View PDF |
| C3-003 | Term Drift | Terminological Instability — "HEIB Target". Generic NMT models lack document-level memory. In this case, the model correctly identified "HEIB" as a label in the first instance (Cible HEIB), but succumbed to fluency bias just 5 lines later by inserting a preposition (Cible de HEIB). This inconsistency violates the legal presumption that different words denote different things, potentially creating an "Indefiniteness" rejection. The solution involves "Global Term-Locking" to freeze the first valid translation and propagate it document-wide. | View PDF |