No. 150 - 29 September 2026
Whether proceedings should be switched to the language of the patent under Art. 49.5 UPCA requires a case-specific balancing exercise. The size and domicile of the parties remain important factors, particularly where SMEs are involved.
A recent order concerning BF exaQC and ParTec shows, however, that another factor can become decisive: if a claimant has itself chosen to litigate comparable cases in English, it may become difficult to argue that conducting another action in English would place it at a material disadvantage.
BF exaQC and ParTec brought an infringement action against Google before the Local Division Mannheim in German. Google requested that the language of the proceedings be changed to English, the language in which the patents had been granted.
The circumstances initially appeared to favour the claimants. They are considerably smaller than Google, are headquartered in Germany and use German as their internal working language. Indeed, in an earlier case involving the same claimants, these circumstances had led to the conclusion that proceedings should remain in German.
The President of the Court of First Instance nevertheless reached a different result this time.
The decisive development was the claimants' own subsequent litigation practice. Since the earlier decision, they had brought infringement actions in English, including proceedings against the same defendants before the Local Division Munich based on one of the patents also asserted in Mannheim, as well as proceedings before the Local Division Düsseldorf against entities of another international group.
For the Court, these proceedings demonstrated that the claimants were capable of litigating in English in comparable circumstances. Against that background, conducting the Mannheim proceedings in English no longer appeared detrimental to them.
On the other side of the balance, Google would have to coordinate its defence with technical and legal teams working exclusively in English. German proceedings would therefore require translations in both directions, while the defendants had to prepare their defence within the UPC's strict time limits. The Court regarded this as a significant procedural disadvantage.
The claimants' smaller size and German domicile therefore remained relevant, but were no longer decisive. Their demonstrated ability to litigate in English tipped the overall balance in Google's favour.
The language of the proceedings was changed from German to English, without additional translation or interpretation arrangements.
