Abstract
Despite their ostensibly aseptic nature, technical texts involve a multifaceted net of institutional, social and pragmatic functions. Patents, in particular, are characterized by a multi-layered rhetorical exercise in which information is provided, and hidden, in light of patent disclosure lawsDrawing on the Cooperative Patent Classification scheme, a corpus of patents related to environmental issues has been compiled. The objective is to investigate the main keywords emerging in the corpus and to analyse their semantic context in this patent type. More specifically, the analysis focuses on the patents’ semantic preference and semantic prosody in order to pinpoint and examine the semantic complexities emerging in this genre and to identify the strategies employed (such as the use of linguistic vagueness) in order to provide the necessary information while not disclosing precious data.
 Patents represent a complex, hybrid and cross-disciplinary genre and a finer understanding of their discursive features may contribute to spreading awareness of the importance that semantics plays within the rhetorical pattern of the text. Therefore, they may be fruitfully employed in Technical Communication courses in order to improved reading comprehension and analytical skills.
Highlights
Patents offer suitable tools for the development of reading comprehension skills in the field of technical communication
Burge (1999: 3-4) shows that even people who are frequently exposed to intellectual property (IP) issues may lack a profound knowledge of the differences between patents, trademarks, copyright and other intellectual property formats
The rationale behind this exploratory and descriptive study lies in the awareness that a deeper understanding of key vocabulary and phraseologies may yield insights into the specificities of a genre such as the patent, whose importance is continuously growing in present-day society
Summary
Patents offer suitable tools for the development of reading comprehension skills in the field of technical communication. The complexity of a patent often lies in its dual nature as both a technical and a legal text, and the skills to be developed for its understanding are diverse and multifaceted. The patent application process lies at the crossroads of different areas of law and it is attracting growing attention in both business and academic settings. Invention”, its purpose being to persuade the awarding body of the novelty, non-obviousness, and utility of an invention by resorting to the following two strategies: a) Identifying the field and scope of the invention patented. To identify the patterns used to argue in favour of the patented invention, a mere observation of the keywords used for the query is not sufficient; rather, substantial co-text is necessary. The strategy followed consists of reading 10 random sample paragraphs containing the keywords, checking that such paragraphs are in the section of the patent under investigation, testing their automatic identification, and checking anew that the concordances obtained are in the correct section of the patent.
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