I spent 5 years in Biochemical research, 5 years as a patent examiner, 12 years in Japanese patent database input, QA and management and over 6 years as an investigator in Japan. I have lived in Japan a total of 17 years and been translating, not always fulltime, since 1980. In patents I have worked lately on semiconductors, software, navigation, power generation, automotive, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, polymers. shipping and biotechnology. It seems to me that companies and lawyers miss a lot of relevant patent citations because they only search Patent Abstracts of Japan, i.e. poor English abstracts of Japanese patents. and translate fulltext when they should have a competent translator search for translate the relevant parts of MORE patents at a lesser cost and better result. In addition, Japanese utility model applications, which are only published in Japanese with no English abstracts, are completely ignored as a source of relevant prior art. see "es.linkedin.com/pub/mike-o-keeffe/3/573/493/"