KIRAMEKI

TranslationDecades-long track record in IP/Legal & Technical/Industrial Translation

We are an outlier in the translation business. We are not a translation broker (purchaser/reseller of translations), but rather a true translation company. We execute and provide Japanese-to-English translations and have a track record of providing translation for a diverse spectrum of clients. We provide consistently high quality and handle a diverse range of subject matter.

Intellectual Property & Legal Translation

Documents We Handle

We handle not just patent specifications, but virtually any document related to the patent prosecution process, patent litigation, and a wide range of other legal matters, including regulations, a partial list being as follows.

  • Patent specifications (related to a diverse range of fields of art
  • Procedural amendments
  • Written oppositions
  • Appeals
  • Notification of reasons for rejection
  • Trials to invalidate
  • Arguments (written opinions)
  • Allowances
  • Complaints
  • Final rejections
  • Purchasing agreements
  • Licensing agreements
  • Powers of attorney
  • Non-disclosure agreements
  • Priority documents
  • Non-patent documents, including academic papers submitted as prior art
  • Employment agreements
  • Corporate safety and health regulations

Technical/Industrial Translation

In a space populated by many translation providers claiming to be able to handle any language and any subject matter, Kirameki is rather unusual, in that we consciously limit our scope to the Japanese-English language pair and to the fields in which we can guarantee high quality. But that still leaves a large number of fields in which we are confident of our translation quality and have a track record demonstrating that this confidence is not misplaced.

Coming from an engineering background, and with significant real-world industry and research experience, the CEO of Kirameki Translations feels strongly that a "jack of all translations" translation broker is not the best choice for clients looking for high-quality translations of complex subject matter.

Since starting to provide technical translations decades ago, we have adhered to the concept of providing quality translations done by identifiable translators who understand the technology they are translating, something that is clearly not a given in the translation industry, which is increasingly populated by translators with an interest and some ability with foreign languages, but not necessarily the background to understand the subject matter to be translated.

Documents We Handle

While we can handle virtually any type of document in fields that are within our range of competence and experience, just a few of the types of documents we handle are as follows.

  • Technical papers
  • Specifications, sales literature, user manuals, and maintenance manuals (particularly for complex industrial equipment)
  • Internal engineering & production documents
  • Test reports
  • Software-related documentation
  • Technology transfer documentation

Technical Subject Matter Fields We Handle

We have a translation track record in a wide range of fields, just a few of which are show below, and we have direct industry and research experience in a number of these fields.

  • Electronics
  • Analysis & other scientific equipment
  • Machinery
  • Semiconductor devices and manufacturing methods
  • Energy/power generation/transmission & storage infrastructure
  • Display technology
  • Materials
  • Automotive
  • Measurement & testing
  • Optics
  • Control systems
  • Games
  • Communications

Certified Translations

For translations we have executed, we can provide certification for use in prosecution or litigation and in submission to various regulatory agencies. We provide a letter of certification for a translation signed by the responsible translator, something that many other translation providers—particularly the larger ones—do not and cannot do. Such translation brokers very often provide a purported certification letter signed by a person who is not even a translator and has no way of judging the quality of the translation they have sold you. In fact, because such translation brokers often subcontract to other brokers—these days often in China—they might not even know the name of the translator who executed the translation they have purchased for resale to you. We know who translates your documents.

Our Approach

Every document we accept for translation is subjected to a rigorous process we have developed over decades of providing translations.

Initial Readthrough
An initial readthrough is done to identify at an early stage problems that could impact the translation process.
Establishment of Terminology to be Used
Terminology needs to be both consistent within the translated document and in conformance with terminology conventionally used in the field of the subject matter being translated.
Glossary Creation and Management
To ensure terminology correctness and consistency, we build and maintain our own client-specific, job-specific, and field-specific glossaries.
Translation
Once the above preparatory steps have been completed, the translation process begins. Unlike the case of the major translation brokers that almost always need to subcontract and sometimes to subcontract to other translation brokers that themselves subcontract, in the somewhat rare cases in which we do not execute a translation in-house, translation of your documents is only entrusted to known translators who both fully understand the subject matter of the document to be translated and have years of translation experience. This rule is very important to our CEO, who is himself a veteran translator and specialist in several fields, and ensures the quality of translations we provide. And, unlike the large translation brokers in the US, we will never send your documents to China. Our commitment to supply chain integrity and document security will not permit such behavior.
Questions
Questions might arise during the translation process. If you are not accustomed to receiving questions from your translation source, you might have cause to wonder why that is. Questions are sometimes part of the translation process and should be understood as an indication that the translator realizes the importance of not speculating when translating your documents.
Checking
To assure the quality you require, before we deliver a translation, we always have the work of the main translator checked by yet another translator.

The Things We Commit Not to Do Also Set Us Apart from the Crowd

Naturally, as a true translation provider (as opposed to a translation broker), we are committed to providing you with the highest possible quality. But there are a number of things that we promise we will not do when you issue an order to us for translation. These things distinguish us from the mass-production translation brokers that are committed to volume over quality.

We will not accept an assignment unless we have the in-house capability of assuring the quality before we send you a translation.
Ethics and our commitment to quality prevent us from doing that.
We will not (and need not) scramble to the Internet in search of translators when we receive your order.
Such behavior is characteristic of mass-production brokers with very little or no in-house capability.
We will not accept a job without knowing who will be doing the translation beforehand.
In the world of translation providers, this is a promise that very few companies can make and fulfill. Even the rare translation companies that have any significant in-house Japanese translation capability seldom have the capability to do any meaningful portion of their work in-house, and are forced to subcontract almost all the work they do, sometimes to other companies that might again subcontract the work. This subcontracting spiral often leads to an unknown translator in an unknown venue. Often the only person who knows the identity and location of the translator doing your work is the final subcontractor, and then often only after they find a translator for your job.