In case it may be of interest to some of the attendees, I will be giving a 3-hour AST session at the American Translators Association’s Annual Conference in San Francisco in October. Here is an outline of what we’ll be discussing. (After the session, attendees will receive an 800-term Glossary of Spanish-English Family Law Terms extracted from my Diccionario de términos y conceptos jurídicos español-inglés that includes all terms and concepts covered.)

An extensive overview of the terminology and concepts of Derecho de Familia, comparing and contrasting family law in the ancient (1889) but much amended Spanish Código Civil, the Mexican Código Civil Federal (1928), and the modern Argentine Código Civil y Comercial de la Nación (2015).

• Focus on translation pitfalls: Survey of the most common problems translators and interpreters may encounter when working in family law contexts
• For each area of Derecho de familia the presenter will first introduce the basic terms and concepts, suggesting possible English renderings for each, followed by a summary of the differences that might be found in Spanish, Mexican and Argentine texts.

Summary of Session Content:

• Derecho de familia (family law; domestic relations)
  • Content of family law (what we’re talking about)
  • Sources of family law (where all of this comes from)
• Familia y parentesco (Family and Kinship)
  • Differing and evolving definitions of familia prompting changes in ES-EN concepts and terminology
• Matrimonio (Marriage)
  • Capacidad y prohibiciones matrimoniales (capacity and prohibitions to marry)
  • Formas y efectos del matrimonio (forms and effects of marriage)
•  Uniones de hecho (Nonmarital Relationships)
• Regímenes económico-matrimoniales (Marital Property Systems)
  • Sociedad de gananciales (ES); sociedad conyugal (MX); comunidad de ganancias (AR): parallels with marriage in US community property states
  • Bienes privativos vs. bienes gananciales (separate vs. community property)
• Nulidad, separación, divorcio (Annulment, Separation, Divorce)
  • Crisis matrimoniales (break-down of marriage)
• • Disolución de matrimonio (is not “dissolution of marriage”)
• • Separación de hecho vs. separación judicial (de facto separation vs. judicially-decreed separation)
• • Divorcio incausado (no-fault divorce)
• • Divorcio contencioso/no contencioso (contested/uncontested divorce)
• • Convenio regulador (marriage settlement agreement)
• • Pensión compensatoria (spousal support)
• • Alimentos (child support)
  • Custodia (custody arrangements for minor children)
• Filiación; relaciones paternofiliales (Parent-child Relations)
  • Hijos matrimoniales y no matrimoniales (marital and nonmarital children)
• • Acciones de reclamación de paternidad (paternity suits)
  • Reconocimiento de paternidad (acknowledgment of paternity)
• Patria potestad/Responsabilidad parental (Parental Responsibility)
  • The shifting focus of patria potestad: from legal custody to parental responsibility
• Acogimiento (Foster Care)
  • Administraciones de Protección de Menores; Servicios Sociales (Child Protection Services)
  • Acogimiento familiar vs. acogimiento residencial (family foster care vs. residential foster care)
• Adopción (Adoption)
  • Expediente de adopción y estudio psicosocial de los adoptantes (adoption proceedings and suitability assessment of adoptive parents)
• Obligaciones de alimentos entre parientes (Family Support Obligations)
• Instituciones tutelares (Protective Care Arrangements)
  • Tutela y curatela (guardianship); defensor judicial (guardian ad litem); guarda de hecho (de facto guardian), otros
  • Differing definitions of tutela, curatela, guardianship of the person, guardianship of the estate, and conservatorship.

For those of you who may be attending the American Translators Association’s annual conference next week in Boston, you may be interested in a session I will be giving on Friday on distinguishing and translating the terminology of propiedad intelectual and propiedad industrial. I’ll focus on how intellectual property is defined and protected in the US and in Spanish-speaking jurisdictions, providing a concise summary of how copyright, patents, trademarks, and other intellectual property rights may be acquired, defended, transferred, and (possibly) lost in both systems. We’ll look at the application-to-grant process in each case, and key terminology will be reviewed in both Spanish and English. I’ve also prepared for attendees a bilingual glossary of all of the terms we’ll discuss. Here’s an overview of the session content:

• Distinguishing propiedad intelectual and propiedad industrial (copyright vs. patents, trademarks and other registrable rights)
• Copyright (propiedad intelectual; derechos de autor)
  • Defining what constitutes a copyrightable work (what can be copyrighted and what cannot)
• • Rights in copyrighted works: author’s moral and economic rights (derechos morales y patrimoniales), neighboring rights (derechos afines), and exploitation rights (derechos de explotación)
• • Protecting copyright: the registration process
  • Transferring copyright: licenses (licencias) and assignments (cesiones)
• Patent law (Derecho de patentes)
  • Patentability requirements (requisitos de patentabilidad)
• • Structure and content of a patent application
• • Applying for and obtaining a patent (solicitud y concesión de patentes)
  • Protecting patents from infringement
• Trademark Law (Derecho de marcas)
  • “Standard” trademarks: word marks (marcas denominativas), device/design marks (marcas gráficas), and composite marks (marcas mixtas)
• • “New” trademarks: can sounds or smells be registered as trademarks?
• • Protecting trademarks by registration: the first-to-file (Spain, Latin America) vs. first-to-use (US) systems
• • The trademark registration process (búsqueda de antecedentes, solicitud, examen de prohibiciones relativas y absolutas, concesión)
• • International Classification of Goods and Services (Clasificación Internacional de Productos y Servicios)
• • Registration by class
• • Protecting trademark rights (acciones en defensa de la marca)
    • Opposition watch service (aviso de parecidos) to oppose applications for confusingly-similar marks
• • • Registering defensive trademarks (marcas defensivas)
• • • Filing infringement actions (acción por usurpación de marca)
• • • Combating counterfeit and gray-market goods (falsificaciones y productos del mercado gris)
    Transferring trademark rights: licenses (licencias) and assignments (cesiones)
• • Dilution of trademark rights by tarnishment or blurring (dilución por degradación o empañamiento)
  • Loss of trademark rights
    • Genericness (“vulgarización” de la marca)
  • • Failure to use (falta de uso)
  • • Failure to renew (impago de la tasa de renovación)
    • Surrender of trademark rights (renuncia del titular)