Conclusies AG HvJEU, waarin beroep Spanje tegen het Eenheidsoctrooi wordt afgewezen

Conclusie AG Bot in C-146/13, Spanje v Parlement en Raad en C-147/13, Spanje v Raad.

Uit het perscommuniqué: "[...] Through the ‘unitary patent package’, the EU legislature sought to confer unitary protection on the European patent and establish a unified court in this area.

Spain seeks annulment of the two regulations forming part of that package, namely the regulation on the creation of unitary patent protection conferred by a patent and the regulation governing the applicable translation arrangements. In his Opinion in both cases, Advocate General Yves Bot proposes that the Court of Justice should dismiss Spain’s actions. [...]

The Advocate General explains that to limit the number of languages for the European patent with unitary effect is appropriate because it ensures unitary patent protection throughout the territory of the participating Member States whilst enabling a significant reduction in translation costs to be achieved. The Advocate General adds that, if those costs are to be kept down, the EU legislature has no choice but to restrict the number of languages in which the patent must be translated. Since the languages in question are the official languages of the European Patent Office, that choice ensures a certain stability for economic operators and professionals in the patent sector, who are already accustomed to working in those three languages. Moreover, the choice of languages acknowledges the linguistic realities of the patent sector: (i) most scientific papers are published in German, English or French; and (ii) those languages are spoken in the Member States from which most of the patent applications in the EU originate.

The Advocate General takes the view that that choice also complies with the principle of proportionality. During the transitional period, all European patents with unitary effect will be available in English. After that time, the European Patent Office will have a high-quality automatic translation system. A compensation scheme to reimburse translation costs up to a certain ceiling is planned for people who have not filed their application for a European patent in one of the official languages of the European Patent Office.

The Advocate General observes that the principle of legal certainty is undeniably better safeguarded when one language is authentic (in the case of the European patent with unitary effect, it will be the language of the case). If all translations were authentic, there...