Patent translator
| Highest | $3,800 / mo · Switzerland |
|---|---|
| Experience | 0–1 yrs |
| Degree | Required |
| First paycheck | 4 years bachelor's + 1 to 3 months vendor tests |
Pay in the destination countries
Monthly, in US dollars. Each country is an Imora admission package — open one for that route's fees, language requirement and deadline.
| Country | Monthly |
|---|---|
| SwitzerlandIELTS 6.5 · CHF 0.9–8k | $3,800max |
| NorwayIELTS 6.0–6.5 · NOK 130–260k | $3,700 |
| United StatesTOEFL 80–100 · $10–70k | $3,700 |
| DenmarkIELTS 6.5 · DKK 45–135k | $3,600 |
| GermanyIELTS 6.5 · €0–3k | $3,550 |
| FinlandIELTS 6.0–6.5 · €6–18k | $3,550 |
What does the day look like?
You translate patent claims, specifications, abstracts and prior art references. You post-edit pass 1 machine output from WIPO Translate and DeepL Pro in SDL Trados Studio, memoQ, Phrase or Wordfast, search terms in WIPO PATENTSCOPE, EPO Espacenet and Google Patents, keep bilingual termbases, and run QA in Xbench or Verifika on claim numbers, antecedent basis such as 'said element' against 'the element', drawing numerals and units. You work in Microsoft Word with track changes and document compare plus Adobe Acrobat Pro.
About 40% of the day is active translation and translation memory work, 30% is term checks, prior-art cross-checks and claim-to-drawing checks, 20% is post-editing machine output and QA runs, 10% is logs, client messages and file prep. In-house posts are 8 hours per day and 40 hours per week. Freelance deadlines are fixed by filing law, with 12-month Paris Convention and 30/31-month PCT national phase dates. Night and weekend work happens in PCT filing windows. There are no shifts and no on-call rotations.
Where does this lead?
Next step up
What do you make of this job?