From lojbab@lojban.org Sat Dec 4 07:58:05 1999 X-Digest-Num: 302 Message-ID: <44114.302.1653.959273825@eGroups.com> Date: Sat, 04 Dec 1999 10:58:05 -0500 From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" Subject: Re: EU patent system lobbying next month X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 1653 At 04:42 PM 12/4/99 +0200, Robin Turner wrote: >If it's beyond Jorge's capacities, it's probably beyond anyone's >;-) I would never demean Jorge for his attempts to use Lojban, but we can always sic Nick Nicholas on it. Nick is the only one who has ever tried to use MEX to translate mathematical text in a technical work (he made mistakes, but then he had only been using the language for a couple months when he tried). > However, I think it would be good ammunition to provide >versions of a particularly ambiguous part of a patent claim - >even just one or two sentences - in the original, in an English >translation, and in Lojban, with a commentary on the ambiguities >involved. Good opportunities would be provided by ambiguities in >parsing, connectives (e.g. OR vs XOR, IF vs. IFF) or reference >(e.g. who or what does "they" refer to?). > >Given that Pilch isn't so sure of his Lojban, why doesn't he post >a short example in English to the list (pointing out how >ambiguities should be resolved) then any interested party can >have a go at a Lojban translation. This is indeed the sort of thing that we need, ESPECIALLY if he can point out the language issues that made the translation hard. That may take giving us a short piece of Japanese (or German), and then telling us the limitations of translating it various ways into English, from the standpoint of patent law. To argue this case, you need to be able to explain why the existing solution fails as well as why the proposed alternative is better. lojbab ---- lojbab ***NOTE NEW ADDRESS*** lojbab@lojban.org Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: see Lojban WWW Server: href=" http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/ " Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.