Summary: Debates about the contract of Jouve with the EPO overlook the elephants in the room, which include companies that are established and run by former EPO chiefs and enjoy a relationship with the EPO

THE EPO has many big scandals including privacy violations as covered here months ago, back when we wrestled with a lot of EPO scandals and had already written a great deal about Europatis, e.g. in:

1. Jacques Michel (Former EPO VP1), Benoît Battistelli's EPO, and the Leak of Internal Staff Data to Michel's Private Venture
2. Europatis: “Turnover of €211,800 and Zero Employees”
3. Loose Data 'Protection' and Likely Privacy Infringements at the EPO: Here's Who Gets Employees' Internal Data
4. Summary of the EPO-Europatis Series
5. Revolving Doors of High-Level EPO Management: Jacques Michel and the Questel Deal With the EPO

Europatis, in short, is an EPO-connected company of a former EPO Vice-President from France.

Mark Schweizer recently asked about a French company called Jouve. To quote:

If there ever was a first world problem, then this is it. But whenever (okay, not every single time) I walk to the printer in our office and pick up a freshly printed European patent application or European patent, I read the line at the very bottom of the first page which reads “Printed by Jouve, 75001 PARIS (FR)”, and I think “no, it isn’t. It’s printed by my Cannon makeupsomenumber in Zurich, Switzerland. I wish I was in Paris”. Why does it say “Printed by Jouve” on every single European patent (application)?

Jouve is a group of companies headquartered in Paris providing, in their own words, “customers with cross-media solutions for designing, enriching, showcasing and distributing content”, whatever that means. Those services include on-demand printing and web-to-print services. I would assume that Jouve has some kind of contract with the European Patent Office. However, are they printing anything for the EPO, much less patents and patent applications?

Jouve seems to be getting EPO data, but Europatis gets very personal data about staff and there is also the possibility of nepotism (Jacques Michel, former EPO VP1)

Read the latest comments which attempt to answer Schweizer's question, notably this person who says "I imagine that Jouve still do the typesetting - OCR'ing the scanned specification pages (yes even if you printed them nicely to pdf) and turning them into the published spec."

Is this another EPO scandal in the making? We don't think so. But some people latch onto the nationality of the company,e.g.:

Interesting, a French Company not doing what they claim to be doing on every title page of a European Patent. I always wondered who authorized that after the change to electronic publishing. Why not also the provider of the paper and of the printing ink? Why not the company providing the software for generating the pdf? Great Ad for Jouve anyway, and a French company deserves this, doesn't it? The French seemingly have a tradition of having related people doing nothing but the gouvenement paying for it, at least when you read the newspaper you get that impression. Presidential order? Honi soit qui mal y pense

"Here is some background to the EPO contract with Xerox/Jouve for bedtime reading," says the latest comment, pointing to a Xerox contact with the EPO (which has many Xerox equipment on site). It said that Xerox, as of 1990, would "capture and publish 65%" of EPs and the remainder would be "processed by a French company, Jouve."

Is there some sort of scandal here? We don't think so. As it goes back so many years, it's unlikely to have anything to do with Battistelli. But by all means, someone should look more closely into Europatis. ⬆