Level 3: In-Context Consistency
Document-Wide Terminological Stability
NMT models have no long-term memory — each sentence is translated semi-independently. In multi-claim patent documents, this creates catastrophic term variation where a single component accumulates multiple different translations across claims. Patent examiners interpret term variation as intentional claim differentiation, triggering indefiniteness rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b).
Corpus status:
5 cases
— Active. New cases added as documented from ongoing HITL review.
| ID | Error Type | Case Summary | |
|---|---|---|---|
| L3-001 | Synonym Drift | In-Context Consistency — The "Three-Headed" Device. A medical injector patent consistently referred to a single "control device." Generic NMT drifted between three different translations (commande, contrôle, régulation) across the document, artificially creating a system with three distinct controllers. This variation violates the legal presumption that different words denote different things. The alignment protocol implements "Global Term-Locking" to freeze the first approved term and propagate it consistently throughout the claims. | View PDF |
| L3-002 | Synonym Storm | Catastrophic Terminology Drift — "The Synonym Storm". In a bio-pharma patent, the core invention ("Flow process system") must be semantically invariant. Generic NMT, exhibiting "Goldfish Memory," generated 7 different French translations (e.g., système de traitement..., système de processus...) across 15 claims. This inconsistency fractures the legal scope, implying the existence of multiple distinct inventions. The alignment solution implements "Zero-Tolerance Locking," enforcing a single canonical term (système de traitement d'écoulement) throughout the entire document. | View PDF |
| L3-003 | Oscillation | Polysemy Hallucination & Semantic Drift — "Pace Pulse". In patent EP4142594, the term "pace pulse" refers strictly to an electrical trigger (impulsion). The generic NMT model hallucinated a biological context, translating it as pulsation (heartbeat) in the preamble, but correctly as impulsion in a subsequent step. This oscillation within a single claim violates the Rule of Consistency, creating a fatal legal contradiction where the claim ostensibly defines two different physical phenomena. The alignment protocol implements "Semantic Domain Locking" to strictly enforce the electrical definition document-wide. | View PDF |
| L3-004 | Domain Bias | Domain-Context Hallucination — "Beam Training". In 5G/6G telecommunications, "Beam Training" describes the physical alignment of antenna signals (Formation de faisceau). Generic NMT models, biased by AI training data, hallucinated a machine learning context, translating it as Apprentissage du faisceau (Beam Learning). This fundamentally alters the claimed invention from a physical signal process to a software learning process, risking patent misclassification. The alignment protocol implements "Bigram Context Constraints" to detect the [Beam + Training] compound and enforce signal processing terminology. | View PDF |
| L3-005 | Hallucination | Categorial Hallucination — "The Collision Avoidance Syringe". In medical device patent EP4028082, the term "injection device (10)" appears in all 15 claim preambles. Generic NMT translated it correctly as dispositif d'injection (10) in 14 claims, but hallucinated système d'évitement de collision (collision avoidance system) in claim 13 — a term from automotive/robotics with zero semantic connection to the patent. This categorial domain substitution severs claim 13 from its dependency chain (claims 1–11), rendering it legally void under EPC Articles 83–84. The same patent also exhibits a degenerate repetition loop (claim 8: partie de la partie de la partie...) and 12+ term-consistency failures across core components. The alignment protocol implements "Preamble Subject Locking," cross-checking the subject term of every dependent claim preamble against the canonical term established in the independent claim. | View PDF |