## María del Carmen Acuyo-Verdejo*

## Textual Knowledge in Legal Translation

## Abstract

In  this  paper,  we  discuss  the  importance  of  textual  knowledge  for  the  translator  in different cultures. By knowing the superstructure of the different text types, the trans  lator will have less diffi  culties in his/her decision-making process. The more familiar the  translator  is  with  the  different  types  of  texts  within  a  given  culture  and  their super  structures, the better the reception of the translated text in the target culture. To this purpose, we have taken as our material texts from industrial property law. Most of the times, the main problem translators encounter derives not only from the subject fi  eld of a document, where we deal with a very specialised terminology, but also from the text type itself. Recent research in Translation Studies has underlined the importance of this aspect, and specifi  cally in the fi  eld of legal translation (Borja, 1998, 2000). This paper is intended to show the specifi  c textual conventions that characterise some of the most commonly translated documents regarding the registration of a trade mark. The documents considered in this paper make specially reference to those we fi  nd both in the Spanish and the British legal systems.

## 1. Introduction

Nowadays the study of translation is increasingly being considered as a multidisciplinary discipline (Snell-Hornby, 1988; Hatim and Mason, 1990; Ulrych, 1999; Hurtado, 2001 among others). The notion of multidi  sci  plinarity and interdisciplinarity not only applies to translation studies in general, but also to specialised translation. Indeed, most of the documents belonging to specialised translation cover a wide range of different disciplines, such as, medicine, law, sociology, economics or international trade.

* María del Carmen Acuyo-Verdejo AVANTI Research Group (HUM-763) University of Granada Faculty of Translating and Interpreting C/ Buensuceso, 11 18002 mcacuyo@ugr.es

Hermes, Journal of Linguistics no. 32-2004

167

In line with specialised translation, this paper deals with texts from a very specifi  c legal domain, that of industrial property law. Moreover, this  paper  is  intended  to  show  the  specifi  c  textual  conventions  that characterise some of the most commonly translated documents regarding the registration process of a trade mark and with special reference to those we fi  nd both in the Spanish and the British legal systems.

There are various reasons that can justify the research in the translation of industrial property law documents. First of all, both economically  and  legally,  the  function  of  industrial  property  rights,  namely patents and trade marks, is paramount in modern business. Patents, for instance, contribute to the developing of science and technology, and hence the economy of a given country. The essential function of trade marks is to give the consumer a guarantee of the product purchased, enabling them to distinguish one product from others of different origin.

Secondly, the importance of this topic from the translation point of view is illustrated with the following facts and fi  gures. According to statistical data from the different industrial property offi  ces involved in this survey (the Spanish and the British one), there has recently been an increase in the number of applications for registration of trade marks. Only in Spain 70,000 applications were fi  led in the year 2001, whereas in the United Kingdom there were 40,000 for the same time period.

Thirdly, the importance of having a trade mark protected within the European Union resulted in the creation of an European Offi  ce, the Offi  ce for the Harmonisation of the Internal Market, (OHIM) located in Alicante, Spain, and in which a specifi  c linguistic policy governs the production and the translation of the documents appearing in this registration process. In accordance with  article 115 from European Council Regulation, there are mainly two different languages, the so called language of application that  can be any of the offi  cial languages within the European Union and the language of procedure that can be any of the working languages of the OHIM, that is, English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.

Fourthly, one of the main effects of EU membership has been the continuing  harmonisation  of  national  legislations,  including  those referring  to  intellectual  property  law.  In  this  sense,  we  were  curious about  how  this  could  affect  the  creation  of  new  texts  within  the European context.

## 2. Theoretical  framework

We believe that in the case of specialised translation the main problem translators  encounter  derives  not  only  from  the  subject  fi  eld  of  a document, where they deal with a very specialised terminology, but also from the text type itself. In this regard, the wide variety of documents involved,  for  instance,  in  the  registration  process  of  an  international trade mark or, even in the registration of an European patent, force the translator to take important decisions when dealing with this type of mixed texts.

Recent research in Translation Studies has underlined the importance of analysing the textual aspect. Seminal work has been done by Borja (2000) within the legal domain and by Gamero (2001) in the fi  eld of technical  texts.  However,  within  the  fi  eld  of  industrial  property  law, little  research  has  been  conducted.  In  the  case  of  patents,  Göpferich (1995) analysed the macrostructure of this type of mixed documents and in the case of trade marks Sergo (2000) analyses the translation of the trade mark names and its importance from the point of view of the target culture and target consumer of a given product. In an attempt to fi  ll this gap in translation research, we would like to propose an analysis of the textual conventions of a trade mark document, the registration certifi  cate , taking into account the superstructure of this document, as the core textual parameter of this survey. Several authors have dealt with this parameter, such as Van Dijk (1980), Jiménez (2000), among others. In accordance with the former author a superstructure is the schematic form that organises the global meaning of a text (Van Dijk, 1980: 108). Jiménez considers the superstructure as a parameter directly related to the external form of a text and its belonging to a specifi  c typology:

En líneas generales, el concepto de macroestructura está relacionado o se refi  ere al contenido global o general del texto o a éste considerado también como un producto total e interdependiente. El término superestructura está directamente relacionado con la forma del texto, con la forma externa y su pertenencia a una tipología u otra (Jiménez, 2000: 119).

This  parameter  is  very  much  connected  to  the  textual  competence that  a  translator  must  have,  which  is  that  of  a  full  understanding  of the text and, in our opinion, this could be achieved by analysing the superstructure of a given text, since by doing so, we can get the textual conventions  of  that  text.  Therefore,  our  paper  deals  with  the  textual analysis  within  the  translation  process: Text  understanding  is  a  kind of problem-solving, and it is one of the tasks of pre-translational text analysis to fi  nd where the solutions of textual comprehension problems come from (Wilss, 1996: 172-3).

To date, models related to textual conventions have been proposed both for a specifi  c language combination and/or for a specifi  c text type (Clyne  1987,  1994;  Bhatia  1993;  Kussmaul  1995,  1997;  Trosborg, 1997; Engberg 1992, 1997, 2000; Göpferich 1993, 1995; Borja 1998, 2000; Gamero 2001; Lvovskaya 2002 and Alcaraz 2002).

Clyne (1987, 1994), based upon the analysis of a corpus of academic texts in German and English, proposes a sociocultural model through which cultural patterns refl  ected in texts can be systematised using the parameters  of  linearity,  relevance  and  symmetry.  In  his  research  he found that English texts are more in line with these three parameters, whereas German academic texts are more content-oriented and have more digressive elements. « [ … ] in 'Anglo' discourse but not in contentoriented traditions, relevance is closely linked with linearity, and, to some extent, with symmetry. This applies to spoken as well as to written discourse (Clyne, 1994: 193)». As we will see, Spanish texts are also more content- oriented and, therefore, with similar cultural patterns to those refl  ected in the German ones, even if they do not belong to the fi  eld of academic texts.

Engberg  (1992)  proposes  a  textual  analysis  from  the  pragmatical point of view. To that purpose, he compiled a corpus of German judge  ments  arising  from  First  Instance  Courts.  His  model  is  based  on Bühler's  model,  according  to  which  the  communicative  situation plays a very important role and, therefore, directly affects the textual conventions of the texts. One of the most interesting fi  ndings of this author  lies  on  the  fact  that,  within  a  given  communicative  situation, there are certain 'intermediaries', that can affect these textual conventions. He refers particularly to the judges working in the First Instance Courts  in  Germany,  where  they  must  follow  certain  rules  for  the drafting of judgements. This could also be applied to industrial property documents, for trade marks agents together with national, international and  European  institutions  also  play  an  important  role  in  the  textual conventions, both from the format and the content point of view:

Erst eine Analyse, die die Institutionalität als Ausgangspunkt nimmt und aus ihr Schlüsse auf Zweck und Ausgestaltung des Textes zieht, also nicht von den Kommunikationsteilnehmern als Individuen ausgeht, führt zu einer wirklich adäquaten Beschreibung solcher Texte. […]  Das  Merkmal  der  Autoritativität  bei  Urteilen  ist  somit  nicht von der Person des Richters abhängig, sondern von seiner Rolle als Mitglied des Gericht und somit als Mittel zur Ausführung der Rechtsprechungsfunktion. Ein Urteil, das von einem Richter in Ausübung seiner Tätigkeit als Mitglied eines Gerichtes formuliert wird, ist automa  tisch autoritativ (Engberg, 1992:165-7).

Bathia  (1993)  applies  a  textual  analysis  from  three  different  points of  view:  the  lexico-grammatical,  the  text-patterning  analysis  and  the struc  tural interpretation of the genre. In accordance with this author the textual analysis is divided into the following steps, some of which have also been underlined by Engberg (1992), especially those concerning the analysis of situational and institutional contexts:

## Steps in the textual analysis of genre BHATIA (1993)

- 1.- Analysis of situational context
- 2.- Search of bibliography
- 3.- Analysis of situational context  (redefi  nition)
- 4.- Selection of corpus of texts
- 5.- Analysis of institutional context
- 6.- Analysis applied to the text (lexico-grammatical, text patterning and structural interpretation of genre)
- 7.- Confi  rmation of results

Kussmaul (1997) has approached the study of textual conventions, in line with Engberg (1992), Bathia (1993) and Göpferich (1993), from the pragmatical and cultural points of view. Kussmaul considers that the concept of convention is very much connected to those of regularities and rules within a given culture . In accordance with this author, success in communication relies pretty much on the fulfi  lment of expectations in the target culture. He distinguishes between constitutive rules with the form 'X counts as Y in the context of C' institutional and regulative rul e s , that is, the ones regulating the performance within a given culture. These rules have the form of  'If Y , do X'. For Kussmaul, the most appropriate ones for the study of the textual conventions are the latter:

Conventions imply conformity and expectation (cf. Lewis 1969: 78), and  when  people  use  words  they  can  normally  be  expected  to  use them in the same sense as other people do, i.e. to conform to generally agreed on regularities. In the same way, when people produce specifi  c text types, such as business letters, they can be expected to conform to specifi  c regularities and rules. If they do not, communication may turn out to be diffi  cult or even break down (Kussmaul, 1997: 68).

When bearing in mind the main approaches highlighted by these authors we  realise  that  they  share  some  viewpoints.  Engberg  (1992)  and Bathia  (1993),  for  instance,  agree  on  the  importance  of  the  analysis of the institutional context as a core element that directly affects the structure of the text. Kussmaul (1997) and Clyne (1987, 1994) agree upon the importance of analysing cultural elements in order to meet target reader expectations. None of them, on their own, can explain the characteristics of the textual conventions of industrial property texts, but they constitute a sound basis for the model we propose.

To our purpose, we would like to apply a similar model to that of Gamero (2001) for the analysis of the registration certifi  cate, in which the key concepts are those of genre and superstructure. Moreover, within the concept of superstructure we will analyse certain variables such as the number of blocks and sections within a given text, the hierarchical order of these blocks and sections, and the level of standardisation presented  in  these  documents  both  in  the  Spanish  and  the  British  legal cultures:

La  superestructura  de  un  género  está  compuesta  por  una  serie  de fragmentos textuales, que se encuentran ordenados jerárquicamente, y  que  reciben  el  nombre  de  bloques  y  secciones.  Los  bloques  son aquellas partes del texto que tienen una determinada función específi  ca en relación con la función general del mismo. [...]  Los bloques se dividen en secciones, cada una de las cuales posee asimismo una fi  nalidad  concreta  respecto  de  la  función  del  bloque  en  la  que  se  halla incluida (Gamero, 2001: 109).

## 3. Material

The material we have used for our research is based on a corpus composed of 40 parallel texts, originally written in Spanish and English, and  which  has  been  gathered  by  visiting  the  main  institutions  and or  ga  nisations involved in industrial property law, that is, the Spanish Industrial Property Offi  ce, ( Ofi  cina Española de Patentes y Marcas ), the British Patent Offi  ce, the Offi  ce for the Harmonization of the Internal Market,  (OHIM)  and  the  World  Intellectual  Property  Organization, (WIPO). For space reasons, we will deal only with one of the documents compiled in this bilingual corpus, which is the registration certifi  cate of a trade mark in Spanish and English.

## 4. Methodology

We propose a mixed model which takes into account elements similar to that of Gamero (2001) for the analysis of our corpus, in which the key concepts are those of superstructure, already defi  ned, and genre, understood as a prototype of text used in specifi  c communicative situations, which are repeated within a given culture and with the pur  pose of making communication possible. Within the concept of superstructure we analyse certain variables such as the number of blocks and sections within a given text, the hierarchical order of these blocks and sections, the  level  of  standardisation  presented  in  these  documents  and  the kind  of  conventional  linguistic  forms  associated  with  each  of  these blocks and sections. On the other hand, we take into account the legal background provided by the comparative legal analysis of the different legal instruments that rule the trade marks law in Spain, in the United Kingdom, as well as in Europe and at international level.

Among the concepts involved in our model we have already defi  ned those of superstructure and genre . We would like to be more explicit about other notions intervening in this textual approach. First of all, what we have called legal cultures makes reference to the main legal instruments  regulating  industrial  property  law,  that  is, Organic  Law 17/2001, 7 th   December of Trade Marks and  Royal Decree 687/2002, 12 th  July for the implementation of the Spanish law of trade marks in the case of Spain;  and Trade Marks Act, 1994 and Trade Marks Rules, 2000 in  the  case  of  the  United  Kingdom.  In  this  respect,  we  would like to stress the importance of these legal instruments for the study of textual conventions, since, although most of them have frequently been used by translators as a useful terminological resource, in the particular case of industrial property law, trade marks law in our research, these legal instruments determine the different kind of genres appearing in the registration process of a trade mark, the main items of information (blocks  and  sections)  to  be  included  in  these  genres,  the  linguistic policy regulating this genres and the communicative situation in which the translation brief is described.

As for the notion of institutional cultures , we refer to the constraints imposed, both from the textual and the format point of view, by the main institutions and organisations involved in industrial property law, that is, the Spanish Industrial Property Offi  ce, ( Ofi  cina Española de Patentes y Marcas ), the British Patent Offi  ce, the Offi  ce for the Harmonisation of  the  Internal  Market,  (OHIM)  and  the  World  Intellectual  Property Organisation, (WIPO). As a result, the communicative situation , in which the translation of a given genre takes place, is determined by these two different cultures and, consequently, textual conventions are also pretty much infl  uenced. This last point is particularly signifi  cant, especially if we take into account the fact that the main receivers of these genres are, depending on the communicative situation, the appli  cant, the trade mark agent or the own institution, whether national, international  or European.

The notion of textual conventions has been studied by all the authors mentioned before and for all of them this concept is related to or imply conformity and expectation on the part of the target culture. In terms of Lvovskaya (2002), based on Lewis' work, textual conventions are defi  ned, from the sociological and sociolinguistical point of view as the regularity in a conduct R among the members of a group G, that participate in situation S in a recurrent way:

La regularidad de una conducta R de los miembros de un grupo G, que participan en una situación S recurrente, es una convención, si y sólo si cada vez  que sucede S, los miembros de G: (1) obedecen casi todos a R; (2) casi todos prefi  eren conducirse según R, si los demás también lo  hacen,  porque  (S)  constituye  un  problema  de  coordinación,  y  la obediencia general a R en S produce un equilibrio coordinado (Lewis, 1975:78).

Taking into account all the notions mentioned above, we would like to propose our particular model for the analysis of textual conventions of the different genres involved in the registration process of a trade mark in Spain and the United Kingdom. The model we propose is presented in the following  table:

INSTITUTIONAL

CULTURE S

The Spanish Industrial Property

Office (DEPM), The Patent Office, LEGAL

CULT URE S

Spanish, British, European and

ОНІ and WIPO

International legal systers

Communicatore Situation

Superstructure (Gamero, 2001):

1.- Identficaton of blocks and sections

- Orderofblocks and section

- Idertification of conventional lingustic foms associated wit

blocks and sections.

<!-- image -->

## 5. Analysis

With this model in mind, the analysis of the superstructure of these two documents, the English one and the Spanish one, is presented in the following tables below:

## Identifi  cation of blocks and sections of  registration certifi  cate of a trade mark

## Document 1: Registration Certifi  cate of trade mark in Spain

- 1.- Coat of arms of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology
- 2.- Name of the institution issuing the document: Ofi  cina Española de Patentes y Marcas (OEPM)
- 3.- Type of document: T ítulo de concesión de marca
- 4.- Trade mark Number
- 5.-  There  appears  a  separate  text,  the  so  called declaración  de  registro structured  in  three paragraphs. This text has three items of information:
1. The fact that the trade mark has been registered in accordance with the legislation in force and with the features specifi  ed in the annexed document
2. The rights conferred to the trade mark holder and for how long
3. It  warns  the  trade  mark  holder  about  the  consequences  if  the  trade  mark  is  not renewed
- 6.- Date
- 7.- Signature of Head of Trade Marks Department
- 8.- Stamp

The annexed document appearing with the registration certifi  cate is the so called Hoja de reproducción y datos de la marca and its blocks and sections of information are the following:

- 1.- Trade Mark Number
- 2.- Trade Mark holder
- 3.- Representation of the trade mark
- 4.- Details of national trade mark
- 4.1.- Date of fi  ling
- 4.2.- Date of registration
- 5.- National trade mark granted by transformation
- 5.1.- Trade mark of origin and number
- 5.2.- Date of fi  ling in the country of origin
- 5.3.- Date of fi  ling in Spain
- 5.4.- Date of registration in Spain
- 5.5.- Seniority: Number of Spanish trade mark
- 5.6.- Date of seniority
- 6.- Priority:
- 6.1.- Country
- 6.2.- Trade mark number
- 6.3.- Date of priority
- 7.- Description (optional)
- 8.- List of goods or services
- 8.1.- Class(es)
- 9.- Signature of civil servant
- 10.- Stamp

## Document 2: Registration certifi  cate in the United Kingdom

- 1.- Body issuing the certifi  cate
- 2.- National emblem stating: The Patent Offi  ce
- 3.- Type of document: Registration certifi  cate
- 4.- Reference to the legislation in force and by which the certifi  cate is issued: Trade Marks Act 1994 of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
- 5.- Trade Mark number
- 6.- Date of registration
- 7.- Representation of the Trade Mark
- 8.- List of goods and services
- 8.1.- Class(es)
- 9.- Name of trade mark holder
- 10.- Date and signature of Director of The Patent Offi  ce

By simply looking at the genres and examining the main blocks and sec  tions  of  information  (Gamero,  2001),  we  got  to  know  the  superstruc  ture of these two parallel texts. From this analysis, it is clear that the Spanish genre is composed of two different texts. The fi  rst one is a declaration made by the Spanish Industrial Property Offi  ce ( Ofi  cina Española de Patentes y  Marcas )  in  which  the  applicant  is  informed about the registration of the trade mark, the rights conferred to the holder by such a registration and the need to renew the trade mark after a ten-year period.

The second genre, the English one, on the contrary, consists in one text much simpler and easy-to read. We observe a clear and remarked linearity in this text as opposed to the Spanish text, where we have found clear digressions and a text that is more content-oriented. These two concepts were already studied by Clyne (1981, 1994) when analysing English and German academic texts and he observed that English academic  texts  are  linear  in  their  organisation,  whereas  German  texts  are more digressive. After the analysis of all the documents compiled in our corpus, we came to the same conclusion, that is, that English texts, even in the legal domain, tend to be simple and linear in their structure, whereas the Spanish  texts are more content-oriented, digressive and with a more complex structure. The documents we analyse in this paper is a clear example.

Once we have established the main blocks and sections of information we would like to see the frequency with which these blocks and sections appear in the documents. The results of this analysis of frequency is illustrated in the following table:

| BLOCKSAND SECTIONS                                  | Spanish Industrial Property Office (OEPM)   | The Patent Office   |
|-----------------------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------|---------------------|
| Details of entity                                   | ×                                           | ×                   |
| Type of document                                    | ×                                           | ×                   |
| Trade Mark number                                   | ×                                           | ×                   |
| Document stating the registration of the trade mark | ×                                           |                     |
| Name of trade mark holder                           | ×                                           | ×                   |
| Representation of the trade mark                    | ×                                           | ×                   |
| Date of filing of registration or basic application | ×                                           | ×                   |
| Date of granting                                    | ×                                           | ×                   |
| Date of priority                                    | ×                                           |                     |
| Trade Mark transformed                              | ×                                           |                     |
| Description of trade mark                           | ×                                           |                     |
| List of goods and services                          | ×                                           | ×                   |
| Signatures                                          | ×                                           | ×                   |
| Stamps                                              | ×                                           | ×                   |

| Frequency of blocks and sections                    | In 100%of Spanish texts analysed   | In 100% of British texts analysed   |
|-----------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------|-------------------------------------|
| Details of entity                                   | ×                                  | ×                                   |
| Type of document                                    | ×                                  | ×                                   |
| Trade Mark number                                   | ×                                  | ×                                   |
| Document stating the registration of the trade mark | ×                                  |                                     |
| Name of trade mark holder                           | ×                                  | ×                                   |
| Representation of the trade mark                    | ×                                  | ×                                   |
| Date of filing of registration or basic application | ×                                  | ×                                   |
| Date of granting                                    | ×                                  | ×                                   |
| Date of priority                                    | ×                                  |                                     |
| Trade Mark transformed                              | ×                                  |                                     |

| Description of trade mark   | ×   |    |
|-----------------------------|-----|----|
| List of goods and services  | ×   | ×  |
| Signatures                  | ×   | ×  |
| Stamps                      | ×   | ×  |

In accordance with the data appearing in the previous tables, it is clear that there are more sections and blocks of information in the Spanish text than in the English one. We refer especially to the date of priority, the  details  of  the  transformed  trade  mark,  the  description  of  such  a trade mark and the declaration made by the Spanish Industrial Property Offi  ce.  This kind of knowledge is extremely useful for the translator, in the sense that the expectations of the target culture can be met more easily and, at the same time, the quality of the translation can be highly improved. This fi  nding becomes even more important if we take into account the fact that all the texts compiled in our corpus present a high level  of  standardisation.  This  enables  the  translator  to  fi  nd  parallel solutions for the translation problems encountered when dealing with this type of texts.

Moreover, this analysis allows us to realise that, national legislation together with institutional textual constraints play an important role in the superstructure of the documents as well as in their content. That is one of the reasons why the texts do not share a common structure. An  other reason for this is the fact that the blocks and sections of information within the texts do not appear in the same order and the kind of blocks of information is not the same, either in quality or in quantity. This fi  nding makes it more diffi  cult to reduce each document to a prototypical superstructure.

After this analyses we see that, there is no single prototypical superstruc  ture,  except  for  the  application  to  register  a  trade  mark  for  the Span  ish and the British documents; what we fi  nd instead is that, despite the harmonisation of the different national legislations in the fi  eld of trade  marks  law,  the  documents  still  present  culture-bound  elements that characterise the Spanish and the British legal culture in general and trade marks legal systems in particular.

Another important aspect regarding the superstructure is the fact that this is a dynamic notion, that is, the superstructure changes as social, legal and institutional changes take place. We have found that textual conventions have changed in Spanish and in British genres when a new law has been passed.

In addition, the degree of standardisation found in the texts varies from genre to genre. This means that, even if a marked tendency to stan  dard  isation has been observed, this standardisation is not a homogen  eous phenomenon. Only one genre out of the 40 compiled is less standardised. The  remaining  39  texts  are  more  standardised  but  still with different levels of standardisation.

In the table below, we illustrate in a systematic way our fi  ndings, that is, the main features that characterise and differentiate these two genres within the Spanish and the British legal cultures. These features can be applied to the rest of the documents conforming the corpus of the 40 most frequently translated texts from the industrial property law fi  eld.

| Features of genre conventions   | SPAIN   | UNITED KINGDOM   |
|---------------------------------|---------|------------------|
| Digressions                     | √       |                  |
| Linearity                       |         | √                |
| Content                         | √       |                  |
| Standardisation                 | √       | √                |

## 6. Conclusions

We would like to fi  nish this paper by providing the reader with some refl  ections about the results found with this textual analysis based on the formal parameter of superstructure.

-  First of all, we believe that intrinsic and automatic knowledge can be created in the mind of the translator by analysing the superstructure of original and parallel genres in different cultures. This automatic and intrinsic knowledge, which is essentially textual knowledge, can help the translator to recognise a specifi  c text type by only looking at it in the same way we can recognise a commercial invoice or a cheque. As Kussmaul (1995) points out, the use of parallel and original genres could be used as an exercise with students to help them acquire this textual knowledge, for we cannot forget that sometimes the poor results in a translation derives form a lack of understanding of the original texts:

Contrastive studies of text types will be extremely useful for translation teaching, and we should encourage our students to work in this fi  eld  in  their  (German)  diploma,  M.A.  or  Ph.  D.  theses.  Once  we know the specifi  c conventions of text types we can use them as material for our syllabus (Kussmaul, 1995: 75).

-  Secondly, the analysis of texts by using the parameter of superstructure,  that  is  the  identifi  cation  of  the  main  blocks  and  sections  of in  for  mation,  gives  us  the  main  textual  conventions  of  a  specifi  c text  type  and  within  a  specifi  c  language  combination.  In  our  case we have been able to distinguish the main differences as for textual conventions between English and Spanish texts and for a specifi  c legal domain, that is, industrial property law. It is true that another approach  with  other  textual  parameters  could  have  possibly  been used. However, due to various reasons, not least the variety of genres involved in the registration process of a trade mark, together with the amount of genres make us select a top-down approach with a general textual parameter.
-  Thirdly,  our  research  has  demonstrated  the  usefulness  of  creating textual corpora of original written texts in different language combina  tions  as  one  of  the  most  important  documentary  and  analytical sources for the translator. Thus, the translator can use it as translation resource, since s/he can easily fi  nd solutions for the problems encount  er  ed in one particular text. Besides, with this kind of corpora the translator can considerably improve the quality of the translation, in  the  sense  that  the  translator  has  enough  information as to meet the  target  culture  expectations. This  goes  in  line  with  Kussmaul's concept of textual conventions as a concept related to conformity and expectations on the part of the target  receiver and/or culture.
-  Even if the European Union tries to harmonise the different national legislations,  including  industrial  property  law,  we  have  observed that, as far as documents are concerned, there are still culture-bound elements  that  directly  affects  the  understanding  of  the  texts,  their formats  and,  therefore,  probably  the  decisions  that  the  translator takes to solve these problems. This fact demonstrates that culture, whether Spanish or British, still plays an important role in the creation of genres and, therefore, in the textual conventions.

-  Finally, we would like to highlight the importance for the translator to have an appropriate knowledge of the textual conventions characterising a given text, of the legal context and the constraints imposed by certain  national,  European  or  international  organisations,  such  as The Patent Offi  ce, the Offi  ce for the Harmonisation of the Internal Market (OHIM) or the Spanish Industrial Property Offi  ce. With this analysis  we  have  observed  that,  in  the  case  of  industrial  property documents,  both  legislation  and  institutional  textual  guidelines, dir  ect  ly affect the content and the internal organisation of the texts. We consider this textual knowledge as essential before actually be involved in the translation process.

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