In the context of litigation between an automotive supplier and one of its former engineers, our team was tasked with translating from French into English a requête aux fins de mesures d’instruction, based on Article 145 of the French Code de procédure civile.
⚖️ Context: inventions, departure, and suspicions
The employee in question, author of numerous inventions de mission under his employment contract, had left the company to join a foreign competitor.
Evidence suggested that he may have personally transferred données et informations confidentielles using his private email address, raising suspicions of potential industrial espionage.
🎯 Purpose of the requête: preserving evidence
The former employer petitioned the court for mesures d’instruction in futurum aimed at identifying and preserving proof of this transfer of sensitive information, in light of an imminent risque de dépérissement de la preuve.
The challenge lay in faithfully rendering a highly technical judicial application that combined elements of evidence law, employment law, intellectual property, and protection of individual rights.
📌 Key contextual equivalents
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requête aux fins de mesures d’instruction → application for investigative measures
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demandes de brevets d’invention → patent applications
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inventions de mission → service inventions
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données et informations confidentielles → confidential data and information
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boîte mail professionnelle/personnelle → professional/personal email address
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respect de la vie privée → respect for privacy
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risque imminent de dépérissement de la preuve → imminent risk of the evidence being destroyed
❓ FAQ: Translating a French requête aux fins de mesures d'instruction
How is requête aux fins de mesures d'instruction translated?
As application for investigative measures. Because the Article 145 procedure has no exact common-law counterpart, a descriptive rendering is preferred over an English term that might wrongly steer the reader toward a familiar but inaccurate concept.
What makes this kind of application difficult to translate?
Conveying a technical text that blends evidence law, employment law, intellectual property and individual rights. Inventions de mission becomes service inventions, and the urgency around preserving proof must read naturally for an English-speaking court.
How is the case anonymised in translation?
The parties — an automotive supplier and a former engineer who joined a foreign competitor — are identified only by role, with no names or identifying details. The industrial-espionage context is preserved without revealing who the protagonists are.
