Bonum Certa Men Certa

The European Patent Office (EPO) Doesn't Like Spanish, So Why Should the Spanish Tolerate the EPO?

Contra EPO

Contra EPO



Summary: Old complaints about the EPO's discrimination against Spanish speakers, as demonstrated by actually speaking to EPO staff

Spanish is -- by some criteria and depending on the definitions one chooses -- the world's most used language (e.g. based on number of countries where it is a first/spoken language). Techrights made Spanish its second language and there are many articles here which were published in Spanish.



"The Spanish language hardly even exists at the EPO. It is definitely not treated as it should and one needn't look far back to see how the EPO, which is based in Munich, (mis)treats Spanish staff."The EPO discriminates against many European languages, but only the Italians and the Spanish had the courage to stress this point and fight over such an important matter (perpetuating power through lingual domination, as the British have done for centuries). The EPO's Twitter account ("European Patent Office" only ever writes in English) promoted automated translations the other day, but these are subpar. Here is the tool they recommend (warning: epo.org link). "Patent Translate," they said in Twitter a few days ago, "comes with a correction editor, which allows you to propose even better translations" (well, that's crowdsourcing, turning Spaniards, for instance, into volunteers for corporations' private gain).

The Spanish language hardly even exists at the EPO. It is definitely not treated as it should and one needn't look far back to see how the EPO, which is based in Munich, (mis)treats Spanish staff. One of them had a nervous breakdown a couple of months ago, after he had been bullied by the 'whiter' staff of the EPO, the I.U. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7].

"They can at least demand that the EPO doesn't treat Spanish as a non-language."We recently became aware of other forms of discrimination against Spaniards at the EPO. "I was reading this article," one person told us about an article we've translated into Spanish a few days ago. "I tried to request Spanish as an opposition language when we were opposing the Amazon Gift patent," this person told us. "We got a nice phone call and email from the EPO saying we have to pay for a translator, while other people with German or French would not have to pay for simultaneous translations during oral proceedings."

That's rather revealing, is it not?

We decided to look further and deeper into it because this is a shared complaint (shared among EU member states); only the Spanish, however, have a strong enough voice (large population) and a good argument for the inclusion of their language because it's incredibly popular (second only to Chinese, Arabic, and English depending on the definition of popularity). It was brought up when debating the UPC's viability at one time. The EPO's management wants the UPC to pass (it even lobbies for it out in the open), but the Spanish people, if properly organised, can definitely do a lot to derail it. They can at least demand that the EPO doesn't treat Spanish as a non-language. Some groups already complained about this, but nothing really came out of such efforts.

"We sent this request in Spanish," wrote to us the above person (the name can be found deeper in the links if one is desperate to know it), and the English translation is his. He ended up "trying to download the thousand pages in the EPO register to locate the right PDF" in this mess. The original letter is as follows (from the FFII):

Bruselas, 07 de mayo 2012

Sujeto: EP927945: el lenguaje de la vista oral de 12 de junio 2012

Estimados Miembros de la Oficina Europea de Patentes,

FFII eV ha recibido su carta del 16 de abril 2012 en relación con la elección de las lenguas de los procedimientos orales con respecto a nuestra oposición a la patente de regalo de Amazon EP927945.

Tenemos la intención de usar el español tanto para los procedimentos por vía oral (habla) como para la interpretación simultánea (escucha).

Saludos cordiales,


And in English:

Brussels, the 7 may 2012

Concerns: Amazon gift patent EP927945: language of the oral proceedings of 12 June 2012

Dear Members of the European Patent Office,

FFII eV has well received your letter of 16th of April 2012 regarding the choice of languages of the oral proceedings regarding our opposition to the Amazon gift patent EP927945.

We intend to use Spanish for the both the language of the oral proceedings (speaking) and the simultaneous interpretation (listening).

Best regards,


"The link to the EPO register is here," he said. "Unfortunately, their website is so crappy that you cannot download the PDF with wget. Here is our answer to their refusal. Trying to find the original in plain text..."

"What is going on, how did it become so bad, and why aren't Spaniards more vocal about this?"Their official answer is here.

"Trying to recover the email from [a person] who is Spanish," he wrote, "when he received the phone call from the EPO yields the following old letter..."

The following is quite self-explanatory:

Dear board,

this email is private, don't forward it, etc.

A German speaking woman from the EPO has just called the office. She was speaking like a script. Question from me, standard answer from her. Well trained. I summarized.

Mr. [redacted] has sent a fax in Spanish :-), but Spanish is not one of the 3 languages accepted by the EPO. I of course said that this is not good for the Spanish speaking people in the EU, bla bla. The standard answer: the 3 official languages of the EPO are bla bla, additionally the EPO offers at no cost a list of translators bla bla that we can hire. I asked for this in written form, she said she cannot reply to a fax in Spanish, we should send the fax in one of the 3 official languages and then she will reply. She asks for this to happen quickly, as she cannot achieve a fax in Spanish in the EPO system.



In conclusion, Spanish is strangely enough being snubbed by the EPO, whereas French (which fewer nations and people can speak) is an "official" language. The same goes for German, which not many people speak at all (except in Germany's area). Are member states treated favourably based on their financial might as opposed to the target audience internationally and locally (Portuguese is more popular than both French and German, maybe even combined, going by some criteria)? What is going on, how did it become so bad, and why aren't Spaniards more vocal about this?

"The European Patent Office is a Corrupt, Malicious Organisation Which Should Not Exist"

--Richard Stallman

Recent Techrights' Posts

More Microsoft-Red Hat Cross-Pollination as the Company Loses a Managing Director
some people move from Microsoft to Red Hat and some do the opposite
Cloudflare Gives Us All Another Reason to Boycott Cloudflare
If Cloudflare wants to use its vast surveillance network (which is what it does as a CDN) to foist paywalls and maybe something worse (like DRM on top), then Cloudflare should be more widely rejected as a company
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has Un-cancelled the Best People, Just in Time for the Big 4-0
Mr. Oliva should have been there all along (since 2019)
Most "Modern" Technology Makes You Slower and Dumber
Because proprietary software makes you worse off
"What Comes After Free Software?" Wrongly Insinuates We've Reached the Goal (Prison is Not the Goal)
The oil tycoons use similar tactics against environmentalists, giving them fake "wins"
Making More Work Space
I learned the hard way that less is more in circumstances where more means distraction
MAHA is a Lie, Public Officials Never Valued Citizens' Health (They Still Value Private Businesses, Their Sponsors)
Reject demagogues
 
Science is Under Attack
Oligarchy prefers a dumbed-down population
Someone Expiring Certificates on the Day of the 9/11 Attacks is Not Someone I Would Want Controlling My PC (or Deciding What's Authorised for Booting)
"social justice warriors"
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has Reportedly Failed People With Wrong Advice
At the moment the SRA has a PR blunder
The Man Suing Brett Wilson LLP and Gervase de Wilde (5RB)
Now he's probably using the (almost) 200,000 pounds he's supposed to receive to sue Brett Wilson LLP and former colleagues/partners
Slopwatch: A World Wide Web That's Rotting for Companies That Won't Even Exist in a Few Years
some of the junk Google News is promoting
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 23, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Links 24/09/2025: Qt Creator 18 Beta, Microsoft Cannot Bail Out "ChatGPT" Anymore, China and US Intensify Censorship
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/09/2025: Gemlogs and Politics
Links for the day
Links 23/09/2025: Japan Limits Uses of Skinnerboxes ('Smartphones') With Toxic "Apps", Fentanylware (TikTok) Tapped by "MAGAts"
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Has Just Been Sued (by Their Own Clients!)
Vladimir and Alla Yanpolsky sued Brett Wilson LLP in BL-2025-001167 at the end of last week
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part II - UK SLAPPs for Americans, SLAPPs for Profit
Brett Wilson LLP has a track record of this kind
Mayday: Optus emergency calling crisis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 23/09/2025: Massive Data Breach, Slop Versus Productivity, and Vista 11 Update Breaks Things Again
Links for the day
Code of Censorship
Extortion is peace
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Press Kit for the Weekend After Next Weekend (40th Anniversary)
miles better than social [sic] media [sic] quips, moderated by narcissists and oil tycoons.
Microsoft Had Two Waves of Mass Layoffs This Month (That We Know of) and It'll Get Worse for Microsoft Soon
Will the axe fall again by month's end?
Gemini Links 23/09/2025: Happy Equinox, Photronic Arts, and Perception Cognition
Links for the day
Lessons We've Learned After 17 Years of American Hosting
GAFAM is "all-in" with the "Trump agenda"
Back to Normal Now, We Plan to Do More In-Depth Series (or Multi-part Stories)
Articles (or series thereof) that contain philosophy are important to us
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 22, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 22, 2025
Microsoft Media is Panicking Amid Mass Layoffs Every Month, H-1B Fees, and "Seattle’s Tech Scene in Trouble"
In "late stage Microsoft", copyleft becomes proprietary
The Next Wave of IBM/Red Hat Layoffs Being Discussed Already
Red Hat is sort of disappearing the way Tivoli did
New Techrights Turns 2
Today starts the third year of the SSG-based Techrights
What Scares Them the Most is Independent News Sites That They Cannot Control and Censor
Wikileaks was a good example of this
If You Don't Control Your Online Platform, Then Someone Else is Controlling You
be (or become) independent
Oracle Started This Year With Slop. Then It Stopped.
Passing fads are like this
Distros That Run on PCs Made 20 Years Ago and Don't Use Systemd
Betas for now
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has a Policy on Racism and Sexism
In then future we'll show the misogyny and racial slurs
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part I - Abusing British Women on Behalf of American Men Who Abuse American Women
Transparency is important to us, so we've decided to make this series
Slopwatch: Google News and the Evident Slopfarm Infestation
This is what people get about Linux when they query Google for Linux
Links 22/09/2025: Murdochs Might Join Fentanylware (TikTok) 'Investors' (Masters), United Kingdom Recognises Palestinian Statehood
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Esperanto Music History and Apps For Android
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: More American 'Censorship' (Retaliation for Journalism), Cheeto "Might Be Losing His Race Against Time"
Links for the day
The Blob Slop
Give me more words, give me some text
The 50-Pound Note Experiment and the "War on Cash"
Britain is actually seeing a rebound in cash payments, and it's not a temporary phenomenon
Slopwatch: Blaming the Victims for Microsoft's Failures and Plagiarising Phoronix
That's what Google has been reduced to: slop and slopfarms
Links 22/09/2025: Breaches, Windows TCO, and Arrests
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Rabbit Hole and DeGoogling Fairphone
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: Russian War Planes Invade NATO Airspace While Dihydroxyacetone Man Escalates Attack on Free Speech Because of Critics
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 21, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 21, 2025