"establish a report"

[Mark Spahn]

What does it mean to "establish" a report?
A report is something that you "prepare" or "write" or "create".
To "establish" a report seems like an idiosyncratic thing to say.
Does "establish" perhaps have some legal meaning here?
An online search on "establish a report" led to nothing enlightening.

The occasion for this question is a side-by-side English-Japanese text
of the Patent Cooperation Treaty, article 17(2) of which says, in part,
that no international search report will be established
国際調査報告を作成しない旨
It looks like the original draft of this treaty was in English,
and the Japanese translators, stumped as to what "establish"
could mean in this context, reasonably interpreted it as
meaning 「作成する」.
-- Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY)

[TimL...@aol.com]

Maybe it refers to its creation and formal placing on record?

 

Tim Leeney

[Herman]

Perhaps the text was first written in French, where "établir un rapport"
is a standard expression, which was then translated literally as
"establish a report".

Herman Kahn

[Mark Spahn]

> the Patent Cooperation Treaty, article 17(2) says, in part,

> that no international search report will be established
> 国際調査報告を作成しない旨
> It looks like the original draft of this treaty was in English,
> and the Japanese translators, stumped as to what "establish"
> could mean in this context, reasonably interpreted it as
> meaning 「作成する」.
> -- Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY)
>

Perhaps the text was first written in French, where "établir un rapport"
is a standard expression, which was then translated literally as
"establish a report".

Herman Kahn
==UNQUOTE==

Ah, that must be it! The original draft of this treaty must have
been written in French, and "établir un rapport" got literally
(mis)translated into English as "establish a report".
And those responsible for the Japanese text of this treaty
must have either corrected the English mistranslation or,
if they were working directly from the French, must have
correctly translated "établir un rapport" as 「報告を作成する」.
So the French and Japanese versions of this treaty are right,
and the English version is wrong. What a satisfying explanation!
I'm glad to establish a rapport with you on this.

[Mark Spahn]

Herman Kahn
==UNQUOTE==

Thank you, Herman, for this datum.

I'm glad to establish a rapport with you on this.
-- Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY)

Further thoughts...
The more I think about this, the more striking it is.
What in retrospect is an obviously wrong word
got written into a major international treaty.
How did this ever happen?

Probably for the same reason that I dismissed my own
misgivings about the strange wording "establish a report":
thinking that goes like "Well, that wording sure sounds
strange to me. But what do I know? The hot-shot
international lawyers who wrote this treaty must know
what they're talking about. This phrase is probably just
some specialized term of art."

But now this terminology is baked into the very treaty,
on unalterable tablets that everyone must take as their
model, including the Geneva functionaries of the
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
Take a look at this English-language document they
prepared, a form to be filled out concerning international
search reports on the patentability of inventions:
http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/pct/en/forms/isa/archive/30_june_2010/isa220.pdf

Right there, on page 1, is item 2, to be checked off when
"The applicant is hereby notified that no international search
report will be established ...".

This self-perpetuating error has earned its place in
the Annals of Mistranslation.

[David Farnsworth]

The French can be proud.

Their language is STILL the world's Lingua Franca. This is the proof.

(Another word that is amusingly archaic. Describes a world language, using the name of a language that no longer is the world language, and using a spelling form in a language that ceased to be the world language centuries, or maybe even millennia, ago. Humans are weird creatures...)

David Farnsworth
Tigard OR 97224

Herman Kahn
==UNQUOTE==

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