Action brought on 25 January 2007 - Systran and Systran Luxembourg v Commission

(Case T-19/07)

Language of the case: French

Parties

Applicants: Systran SA and Systran Luxembourg (represented by: J.-P. Spitzer and E. de Boissieu, lawyers)

Defendant: Commission of the European Communities

Form of order sought

The applicants claim that the Court should:

order the immediate cessation of the acts of infringement and of disclosure by the European Community, acting through the Commission;

order the confiscation of all support material held by the Commission and by the company GOSSELIES on which are reproduced the information technology developments carried out by GOSSELIES from the EC-SYSTRAN Unix and SYSTRAN Unix versions in fraud of SYSTRAN's rights and its delivery up to SYSTRAN, or, at the very least, its destruction under the control of an officer of the Court;

order the European Community, acting through the Commission, to pay damages to compensate for the damage suffered by the applicants as a result of the infringement committed by the Commission and, particularly, by the DGT in the performance of its duties;

such damages are:

for SYSTRAN Luxembourg, EUR 1 531 000;

for SYSTRAN SA, EUR 47 014 000 subject to addition, and EUR 2 000 000 for non-material damage;

order the Court's decision to be published, at the Commission's expense, in specialist journals, reviews and internet sites of SYSTRAN's choice;

in any event, order the Commission to pay all the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

By user licence agreements relating to the SYSTRAN machine translation software program concluded between the applicants' predecessors in title and the Commission, the latter obtained the right to use the software program for its own needs and for those of the European authorities. The applicants submit that the agreements did not assign any of the intellectual property rights in the SYSTRAN software program to the Commission. From 1999 to 2002, SYSTRAN, through its subsidiary SYSTRAN Luxembourg, brought about, for the Commission, the migration to the new system of exploitation. The contract signed for that purpose with the Commission provided that the Commission's entire translation system would remain its property, 'without prejudice, however, to any pre-existing intellectual and industrial property rights'.

In October 2003, the Commission published a call for tenders for the award of a contract relating to the 'maintenance and linguistic enhancement of the European Commission's machine translation service and associated services'. ¹ The applicants did not participate in that procedure. SYSTRAN nevertheless submitted its reservations on the subject-matter of the call for tenders and the ensuing contract since, in its submission, it was liable to infringe its intellectual property rights in the software program.

In this action, the applicants claim that the award of the contract to a company other than SYSTRAN infringes, in itself, their intellectual property rights and necessitates disclosure of their know-how to the party awarded the contract. They claim that since the carrying-out of the tasks required by the call for tenders consists, among other things, of effecting alterations and adaptations to the system originally conceived by SYSTRAN, it at least requires its prior agreement. They maintain, therefore, that by not having required such agreement, the Commission is guilty of infringement of the intellectual property rights relating to the SYSTRAN system and, consequently, of disclosure of the applicants' know-how in breach of Article 4 of Directive 91/250/EEC ² as transposed into the national legal systems.

The applicants then submit that the infringement of the SYSTRAN software program and the disclosure of their know-how are wrongful acts which incur the Community's liability under Article 235 EC and the second paragraph of Article 288 EC. They claim also that those wrongful acts caused damage which should be made good by the Commission.

____________

¹ - Call for tenders No 2003/S 191-171556 (OJ 2003 S 191).

² - Council Directive 91/250/EEC of 14 May 1991 on the legal protection of computer programs (OJ 1991 L 122, p. 42).