Constructions in the Form [there + preposition] in US Patents
(Originally published December 29, 2009; Edited March 21, 2026)
This investigation was done some years ago, but a brief investigation of more recent patents from Japan and native English filings corroborates the occurrences of the subject "there+preposition" construction.
An investigation I did of 10 years of US patents (1,804,405 patents issued from 1999 to 2008, of which 359,802 were issued to inventors in Japan) reveals the following number of patents that include each of the 70 [there + preposition] constructions as shown in the table below. This investigation did not include the USPTO "stop" terms of this form (thereby, therefore, thereof, and thereto), which are ignored in searching the USPTO database.
Japanese-to-English translators should note that such constructions, while sounding a bit unwieldly in English, can solve some problems created by not knowing plural or singular and needing to cover both cases, and cases in which a constituent element is located, for example, in some relationship to either an A or a B. There+preposition can come to the rescue in such cases.
| There term | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| therein | 595,243 |
| thereon | 333,956 |
| thereafter | 298,910 |
| therefrom | 247,773 |
| therebetween | 211,676 |
| therewith | 175,164 |
| therethrough | 147,981 |
| therefor | 79,060 |
| thereupon | 21,509 |
| thereinto | 17,213 |
| thereover | 13,274 |
| therealong | 10,803 |
| thereat | 11,071 |
| therearound | 10,370 |
| therewithin | 9,365 |
| thereunder | 8,824 |
| thereabout | 8,635 |
| thereabove | 5,625 |
| therebelow | 5,462 |
| thereacross | 4,197 |
| thereagainst | 3,938 |
| therebeneath | 2,044 |
| thereonto | 1,941 |
| thereabouts | 1,320 |
| therepast | 1,082 |
| thereamong | 1,060 |
| therebehind | 1,027 |
| thereinside | 912 |
| therebeyond | 563 |
| thereshown | 320 |
| therebefore | 315 |
| thereatop | 273 |
| theretowards | 256 |
| thereadjacent | 184 |
| thereas | 159 |
| thereoff | 133 |
| theretogether | 96 |
| theretoward | 68 |
| thereoutside | 58 |
| therebeside | 57 |
| therethroughout | 56 |
| therevia | 50 |
| thereunderneath | 41 |
| thereinstead | 39 |
| thereaboard | 32 |
| thereattached | 32 |
| thereahead | 27 |
| thereamongst | 24 |
| thereopposite | 17 |
| thereapart | 14 |
| theredown | 12 |
| thereduring | 9 |
| theresurrounding | 9 |
| therealongside | 7 |
| therenear | 7 |
| therewithout | 6 |
| thereback | 5 |
| therefollowing | 4 |
| thereup | 4 |
| thereinunder | 4 |
| thereaft | 4 |
| thereaside | 4 |
| thereinfront | 3 |
| therefront | 3 |
| therealone | 2 |
| therebottom | 2 |
| theredefined | 2 |
| therelike | 1 |
| thereregarding | 1 |
| thereastride | 1 |
I did a further investigation of the constructions with the top 10 occurrences from 1999 to 2008 year to see if there was any difference in frequency of occurrence between the 359,802 patents that were presumably translated from Japanese (based on the country of the inventor as noted in the issued patents) and the overall universe of 1,804,405 patents, the results being summarized below.
| Term | Total Patents with the Term | FO % with the term |
Patents from JP with the Term | FJ % of Patents from JP with the Term | FJ/FO Frequency of in JP sourced patents relative to in all patents with the Term |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| therein | 595,243 | 33.0% | 141,960 | 39.5% | 1.20 |
| thereon | 333,956 | 18.5% | 97,924 | 27.2% | 1.47 |
| thereafter | 298,910 | 16.6% | 113,413 | 31.5% | 1.90 |
| therefrom | 247,773 | 13.7% | 53,407 | 14.8% | 1.08 |
| therebetween | 211,676 | 11.7% | 70,470 | 19.6% | 1.68 |
| therewith | 175,164 | 11.7% | 36,472 | 10.1% | 0.86 |
| therethrough | 147,981 | 8.2% | 26,987 | 7.5% | 0.91 |
| therefor | 79,060 | 4.4% | 30,006 | 8.3% | 1.89 |
| thereupon | 21,509 | 1.2% | 5,287 | 1.5% | 1.25 |
| thereinto | 17,213 | 1.0% | 10,475 | 2.9% | 2.90 |
As can be seen from the above results, for many of the top 10 constructions, the frequency of occurrence is significantly higher in patents that have presumably been translated from Japanese. Translators with experience in handling the locutions that occur in Japanese patents might guess some reasons for this inordinately high occurrence in patents translated from Japanese.