GENRE SPECIFICITY OF PATENT DOCUMENTATION

Abstract

The article is devoted to the actual problem of genre features of patent documentation. The relevance of the issue is related not only to the importance of further accumulation of knowledge in the field of functional stylistics and text linguistics but also to the tasks of improving inventive and patent-licensing work. Patent documentation is considered as a type of scientific and technical literature that combines the properties of two functional styles: scientific and technical and official and business. The article analyzes the directions of linguistic studies of patent documentation, in particular, the comparison of the patent genre with other genres of scientific literature. The article provides a comparative analysis of the description of the invention as a structural component of a patent and a scientific article. It is noted that with the scientific style, the description of the invention and the entire text of the patent combine such socio-cultural functions as the fixation of technical knowledge, which is objectified in the form of texts and the implementation of the exchange of knowledge with the help of patent documents; the patent combines the common function of intellectual property protection with the official business style. Special attention is paid to the description of the invention, which is a text with a dual functional and stylistic function, and the formula of invention, which is a part of the description, a short verbal expression of the essence of the invention. The main function of the formula is legal. Based on the intentional-functional approach, the article represents the linguistic features of the patent not as a set of separately taken components in the form of archaisms, clericalisms, and terms, but as a model consisting of interdependent elements.