Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2003:175
Date: 2003-03-20
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Anti-discrimination;Non-discrimination on grounds of nationality
Procedure: Action for annulment;Appeal - unfounded
Origin: Netherlands

Summary of the Judgment 
1. Community trade mark — Languages of the Office — Obligation on the applicant 
for registration of a Community trade mark to indicate a 'second language' as a 
possible language of procedure in opposition, revocation and invalidity proceedings — 
Sending of written communications in the 'second language' — Scope — Infringe­
ment of the principle of non-discrimination — None 
(Council Regulation No 40/94, Art. 115(4)) 
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2. European Communities — Language regime — Whether there is a general principle 
enshrining every citizen's right to have any act that may affect his interests drafted in 
his language — None 
3. Community trade mark — Languages of the Office — Obligation on the applicant 
for registration of a Community trade mark to indicate a 'second language' as a 
possible language of procedure in opposition, revocation and invalidity proceedings — 
Infringement of the principle of non-discrimination — None 
(Council Regulation No 40/94, Art. 115(3)) 
4. Acts of the institutions — Statement of reasons — Obligation — Scope — Council 
Regulation No 40/94 on the Community trade mark — Languages of the Office 
(Art. 253 EC; Council Regulation No 40/94) 
1. It follows from Article 115(4) of Regu­
lation No 40/94 on the Community 
trade mark, that the option, available 
to the Office for Harmonisation in the 
Internal Market (Trade Marks and 
Designs), of using the second language 
chosen by the applicant to send him 
written communications if the appli­
cation was made in a language other 
than the languages of the Office is an 
exception to the principle that the 
language of proceedings be used, and 
the term 'written communications' 
must therefore be interpreted strictly. 
Since the proceedings comprise all such 
acts as must be carried out in process­
ing an application, it follows that the 
term 'procedural documents' covers 
any document that is required or pre­
scribed by the Community legislation 
for the purposes of processing an 
application for a Community trade 
mark or necessary for such processing, 
be they notifications, requests for cor­
rection, clarification or other docu­
ments. All such documents must there­
fore be drawn up by the Office in the 
language used for filing the appli­
cation. 
In contrast to procedural documents, 
'written communications', as referred 
to in the second sentence of 
Article 115(4) of that Regulation, are 
any communications which, from their 
content, cannot be regarded as 
amounting to procedural documents, 
such as letters under cover of which the 
Office sends procedural documents, or 
by which it communicates information 
to applicants. 
Since the use of the second language in 
this context cannot adversely affect the 
legal interests of an applicant for a 
Community trade mark, it follows that 
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any difference in treatment that might 
result from use of the second language 
would be negligible in scope and in any 
event justified by the operating needs 
of the Office. 
(see paras 45-47, 96) 
2. The references in the Treaty to the use 
of languages in the European Union 
cannot be regarded as evidencing a 
general principle of Community law 
that confers a right on every citizen to 
have a version of anything that might 
affect his interests drawn up in his 
language in all circumstances. 
(see para. 82) 
3. The obligation in Article 115(3) of 
Regulation No 40/94 on applicants 
for a Community trade mark to 'indi­
cate a second language which shall be a 
language of the Office [for Harmon­
isation in the Internal Market (Trade 
Marks and Designs)] the use of which 
he accepts as a possible language of 
proceedings for opposition, revocation 
or invalidity proceedings' does not 
contain an infringement of the prin­
ciple of non-discrimination. 
The language regime of a body such as 
the Office is the result of a difficult 
process which seeks to achieve the 
necessary balance between the interests 
of economic operators and the public 
interest in terms of the cost of proceed­
ings, but also between the interests of 
applicants for Community trade marks 
and those of other economic operators 
in regard to access to translations of 
documents which confer rights, or 
proceedings involving more than one 
economic operator, such as opposition, 
revocation and invalidity proceedings 
within Regulation No 40/94. Therefore 
in determining the official languages of 
the Community which may be used as 
languages of proceedings in opposition, 
revocation and invalidity proceedings, 
where the parties cannot agree on 
which language to use, the Council 
was pursuing the legitimate aim of 
seeking an appropriate linguistic solu­
tion to the difficulties arising from such 
a failure to agree. Similarly, even if the 
Council did treat official languages of 
the Community differently, its choice 
to limit the languages to those which 
are most widely known in the Euro­
pean Community is appropriate and 
proportionate. 
(see paras 92-95) 
4. The scope of the obligation to state 
reasons depends on the nature of the 
measure in question and, in the case of 
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measures of general application, the 
statement of reasons may be confined 
to indicating the general situation 
which led to its adoption, on the one 
hand, and the general objectives which 
it is intended to achieve, on the other. If 
the contested measure clearly discloses 
the essential objective pursued by the 
institution, it would be excessive to 
require a specific statement of reasons 
for the various technical choices made. 
In that connection the provisions in 
Regulation No 40/94 on the Commu­
nity trade mark concerning the lan­
guage regime of the Office for Har­
monisation in the Internal Market 
(Trade Marks and Designs) are suffi­
cient to indicate the underlying justifi­
cations and to enable those justifi­
cations to be reviewed. 
(see paras 102-103) 
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