The decision in May 2015 by the European Court of Justice, ruling against Spain’s complaint about the discriminatory nature of the unified patent process, is indicative of the slow but sure trend of the EU to become monolingual.

The decision in May 2015 by the European Court of Justice (1), ruling against Spain’s complaint about the discriminatory nature of the unified patent process, is indicative of the slow but sure trend of the EU to become monolingual.

Spain rightly claimed that the new patent protection system is discriminatory, since patents must be filed in English, French or German in order to be applicable – excluding EU citizens who do not speak any of those languages. Their claim was rejected on 6 May.

The process is not new. The European Patent Convention (EPC) was signed in Munich on 5 October 1973 and entered into force on 7 October 1977. Even then, the official languages were English, French and German.

The reason for the recent change in the patent process, supported by Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, France, Luxembourg, Hungary, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the UK (but none of the other EU member states) is the cost and time required to translate patents. More.

See: Kontax

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