Ona Patents v Google Ireland (CFI, 18 June 2024)

Dhenne Avocats · 10 October 2026

Our analysis

Summary

By an order of 18 June 2024 (UPC_CFI_100/2024, APP_26544/2024), the President of the Court of First Instance, Florence Butin, dismissed the application by Google Ireland Ltd and Google Commerce Ltd, defendants in Ona Patents SL’s infringement action on EP 2 263 098 before the Düsseldorf Local Division, to change the language of the proceedings from German to English, the language in which the patent was granted. The order shows that the defendant’s position, normally decisive, may give way to circumstances specific to the claimant.

Question

Should a change to the language of grant (Art. 49(5) UPCA) be ordered where the claimant, a small undertaking, shows a concrete inconvenience?

Decision

The application, lodged as a generic Rule 9 RoP application rather than on the Rule 323 RoP form, was held admissible. On the merits, the President recalled, following the Court of Appeal, that the defendant’s position is decisive where the parties are in a comparable situation, and that the language of the patent is not, as a rule, unfair to the claimant absent specific circumstances. She noted that Ona Patents is a medium-sized company founded in 2023 whose main contact person discusses and approves its written submissions in German, and that parallel disputes between the same parties are pending before the Munich Regional Court. The change would be a significant inconvenience for Ona Patents and only a slight advantage for the defendants, whose considerable means remain relevant. The application was dismissed, without any translation or interpretation conditions.

Key points for practice

• Practical point: a claimant wishing to keep the language of a local division should document its situation precisely (size, language skills of its contact persons, parallel national proceedings), otherwise the language of the patent is likely to prevail.

Provisions applied

Agreement on a Unified Patent Court

Art. 49(1), (2) and (5)

Rules of Procedure

Rules 4.1, 9.1, 321.1 and 323

Case law cited

Curio Bioscience v 10x Genomics, Court of Appeal, 17 April 2024 (UPC_CoA_101/2024), Aarke v SodaStream Industries, Düsseldorf Local Division, 16 January 2024 (UPC_CFI_373/2023), The Hague Local Division, 18 October 2023, UPC_CFI_225/2023, Mannheim Local Division, 15 April 2024, UPC_CFI_410/2023

Related decisions

• Apple, 18 June 2024, order of the same day in Ona Patents’ parallel action against Apple group companies.

Prepared by Dhenne Avocats from the official decision, consulted on 10 October 2026. The database is updated every week, on Friday. Only the official text is authoritative.