Wright FlyerFor the entire life of my firm, I’ve had a recurring theme in just about every blog I’ve posted:  yes, counsel, you do have to translate that thing.  Translation is almost always unavoidable if you want a realistic chance of collecting a judgment.  But last summer, I offered some tips to limit the cost of translation of documents that have to be served abroad.  The first two bits of advice: keep brevity in mind (easy as pie for lawyers!), and avoid exhibits wherever possible.  Within the past month, these ideas have become particularly important to two separate clients in the very same practice area:  patent infringement.  Problem is, those clients hadn’t heard the advice prior to filing their claims, and it has cost them dearly.  Six figures dearly.

Patent infringement suits frequently involve foreign defendants.  Routinely.  In any sort of lawsuit, when just one defendant has to be served in a non-English-speaking country, especially one that is a member of the Hague Service Convention, the documents to be served must be translated.  Every word, every page, including exhibits, which are naturally part of the complaint they’re attached to.  The defendant may be quite competent in English—he may even be a U.S. citizen or “it” (an entity) may be presumed competent simply because it does business in the United States.*

None of that matters, because it’s not about the defendant.  It’s about the foreign officials handling the documents… and those officials don’t sprechen-sie Englisch or parlez-vous anglais.

When even a seemingly short patent is included in the exhibits, the cost to translate goes up considerably.  When two or three (or ten!) patents are involved, the cost can be astronomical.  So how do you get around the cost?  Well, unless local rules force you to attach them as exhibits, just reference the patents and quote the relevant portions.  They’re a matter of public record, so if your defendant wants to know what a particular paragraph says in a specific patent, it isn’t that hard to look up.

Take the Wright Brothers’ patent for the aeroplane (yes, it’s spelled that way in the filing).  It’s just shy of seven thousand words.  Translate that thing into Chinese, and you’re looking at a $2,000 project, with formatting and editing and proofreading.  The Wright patent is a mere seven pages, omitting drawings.  Today, hundred-page patents are routine.  Extrapolate that into dollars and you see the horror of serving in three different countries, all of whom require a different language other than English.

But if the complaint just says “reference U.S. Patent No. 821,393, page three, line ten”, and includes the relevant text and figures (but omits the rest), a whole bunch of resources are saved.

Unfortunately, if you’ve already filed the complaint with the full text, it’s probably too late.  But a bit of forethought prior to drafting can save literally tens of thousands of dollars in costs to serve.

Tens. Of. Thousands.

Who doesn’t want to do that?


* Ahem, “it” being an entity.  Yes, if an entity does business in the United States, it is presumed to be competent in English.  But that isn’t the end of the analysis.  When serving such defendants, their home countries’ declarations to the Hague Service Convention control language issues—not the presumptions of U.S. law.