Method Claims with "comprising"
In French patent practice, when a method claim uses "comprising" (comprenant), subsequent steps must be nominalized (turned into nouns), not left as infinitive verbs. Generic NMT models default to infinitive constructions because they are statistically more common in non-patent French, creating legally invalid claim structures.
| ID | Error Type | Case Summary | |
|---|---|---|---|
| C1-001 | Under-Nominalization | Method Claim Preamble Compliance — "comprising" Trigger Enforcement. A photonics patent method claim used "directing" (gerund), which generic NMT translated as diriger (infinitive). French patent law (EPC Art. 84) requires nominalization to l'orientation after comprenant. The aligned model utilizes relation extraction to enforce the comprenant → Noun morphology, preventing syntax-based rejections. | View PDF |
| C1-002 | Hyper-Correction | System vs. Method Differentiation — Preventing Hyper-Correction. A LiDAR system claim used "configured to" followed by infinitives. The model, over-fitted to method claims, incorrectly nominalized these verbs (l'orientation instead of diriger), creating a nonsense system description. The alignment protocol distinguishes between comprising (Noun trigger) and configured to (Infinitive trigger) as structurally distinct command types. | View PDF |
| C1-003 | Hyper-Correction | System vs. Method Morphology — Trigger-Differentiation Rule. A LiDAR system claim used "configured to" followed by a list of functions. The model, over-fitted to method claim rules, incorrectly nominalized the second verb (l'orientation) instead of preserving the infinitive (diriger). The alignment protocol implements a "Trigger-Differentiation" rule to distinguish between comprising (Noun trigger) and configured to (Infinitive trigger), ensuring grammatical consistency across parallel structures. | View PDF |