Arlington, Virginia · Minutes from the U.S. International Trade Commission · Nationwide
Pro-Legal Services, Inc. supports Section 337 practices before the Commission, and we have handled ITC matters. Section 337 is an import statute, so the record arrives in Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, German, and Traditional Chinese more often than not. Firms that treat Section 337 translation services as a line item to sort out after collection tend to find the problem at the worst point in the schedule — usually between the close of fact discovery and the prehearing statement. These are the eight questions worth settling before the first production lands.
1. What share of the collection is actually foreign-language?
Ask for a language breakdown before review planning, not after. A matter that is ten percent foreign-language and one that is seventy percent are different engagements with different budgets, and the second cannot be staffed at the last minute.
2. Is the review team reading the source language or a translation?
Native-language first-pass review and translate-then-review are different workflows with different costs and different error profiles. Both are legitimate. What is not legitimate is a vendor who does not tell you which one they are proposing.
3. Which documents need certified translation, and which need gisting?
Most of a foreign-language collection never needs certified translation. Machine translation post-editing is appropriate for triage and early case assessment so the team can decide what matters. Full human post-editing with a signed Certificate of Accuracy belongs to what will be produced, filed, or put in front of the ALJ.
4. Is there a terminology glossary, and who owns it?
Patent matters live on technical vocabulary. If the same component is rendered three ways across three exhibits, hearing preparation gets spent explaining translation rather than infringement. The glossary should exist before volume work starts and apply across every linguist on the matter.
5. Does the translator handle CBI, and under what protocol?
Translation routinely sits outside the protective order workflow because it feels like a language task rather than a document task. It is a document task. Ask how confidential material is transmitted, who holds it, and whether the linguists are covered.
6. Who produces the public versions of translated exhibits?
A translated exhibit still needs its public counterpart, and the redaction has to match across both language versions. Ask whether that pairing is one workflow or two vendors coordinating by email.
7. Does the vendor ask which ALJ you are in front of?
Ground rules vary by ALJ, and so do the production and exhibit conventions a translated document has to meet. A vendor who asks which ALJ before quoting has worked the forum. A vendor who does not is about to learn on your matter.
8. Can one provider handle translation, review, and production?
Every handoff between a translation vendor, a review vendor, and a production vendor costs a day and creates a place for version drift. On a 337 schedule — where the target date does not move and, where OUII participates, the Staff is receiving copies too — that is the expensive kind of friction.
How Pro-Legal Answers These
Pro-Legal provides certified legal document translation in more than 100 languages with a signed Certificate of Accuracy, foreign language document review, and machine translation post-editing tiered by what each document is actually for. We build the terminology glossary at the outset and apply it across the matter. Translation, document review, CBI redaction, public version preparation, and production run through one provider under one chain of custody with a single named contact. We ask which ALJ you are in front of before we quote. Our offices are in Arlington, Virginia, minutes from the Commission.
Related reading: our overview of ITC Section 337 litigation support covers the full service range, and our article on choosing litigation support for ITC filing covers vendor evaluation more broadly. Pro-Legal also provides confidential business information redaction and full-lifecycle eDiscovery.
We support Section 337 practices across Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia, including Alexandria, Fairfax, Tysons, Northern Virginia, Richmond, Bethesda, Rockville, Silver Spring, Baltimore, and Annapolis, and act for ITC practices based elsewhere whose matters are heard in Washington, including New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Atlanta, Miami, and Wilmington.
Facing a foreign-language 337 record? Contact Pro-Legal Services, Inc., 1550 Wilson Blvd, Suite 250, Arlington, VA 22209, at info@pro-legal.com or 202-955-9400. Tell us the languages and the volume and we will scope the tiers before you commit. Available 24/7/365.