Here we are at the hallowed portals (which seem very familiar 43 years later) of 38 Avenue Hoche, where, in 1971, I first met Jacques Loriot, on a business-trip with my boss Bryn Jones, Manager of Massey Ferguson’s Coventry patents department. Jacques acted for Massey at the French patent office. His offices impressed me immediately, with their sepulchral calm created by the polished marble décor everywhere. He seemed a cultured [**] and accomplished Frenchman - always friendly, professional, reliable and (an important point in the ’salad’ days of my early 30s) who took you out to lunch, somewhere nice. Dear Jacques. He always chose something French such as 'cuisse de grenouilles', and when it came, would offer the untouched plate for you to take and try some - such a nice gesture, I always thought. Similarly, he introduced us one evening to ‘Vin de Cahors’ at a nice little ‘rive gauche’ restaurant which offered it, and it became a ‘celebrity tipple’ so far as Bryn was concerned, enhanced by the fact that we gathered that it came from a rather small vineyard or wine-growing area.
Jacques’ most generous and helpful act for me was to provide support and encouragement when I started my own practice in 1979/80 in my latter days with Hestair Farm Equipment. He sent me, over the following year or two, several GB patent applications to translate and file in the name of 'Societe Alsacienne Mechanique de Mulhouse’. These were a source of considerable morale-boosting activity for me, and I treated them with infinite care. I have only recently realised that having a client in Mulhouse (albeit via a Paris ‘Cabinet'), in Alsace-Lorraine, is a very ‘continental’ connection, now I know a little more (from the book “The Guns of August” and the ‘Germany in X (a number) Objects’ at the British Museum, on 3.12.14) about that region’s much-fought-over history - with alternating French-and-German sovereignty.
[**]: Re ‘cultured’, I comment that this thought about Jacques is (10.12.14) in these days of rabid and widespread anti-Europeanism, the rise of UKIP and Le Front Nationale, Mr Nigel Farage and Ms Marine Le Pen, a great comfort to me, along with glorious French music like Ravel’s ‘Mother Goose’ suite and Debussy’s arabesques, seeing, as I do, the achievements of the EU in terms of uniting Europe after centuries of warfare culminating in the world’s greatest madness ever in the ‘thirty-years war’ of 1914 - 1945, as one of, if not the, greatest co-operative achievements of mankind.
And here is the location. I’m very glad to say that the firm still exists and at the very same address: click here for their website. Avenue Hoche is on a radius from Étoile/Avenue Champs-Éllyssés at about four-o’clock, and No. 38 is about half-way from Étoile to the Rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré. Not always easy to find, I used to think when I went there subsequently, thinking I knew exactly where it was. Ruth and I visited the office once in more recent times. I have a photograph of Jacques which I took during a stroll [**] in Paris, which is tucked-away somewhere, and which I will unearth one day and add to this record. On one visit he mentioned that his brother (I think it was brother) had been awarded the 'Legion d’Honneur' - but for what services, I do not recollect. The central Paris location of the office was reasonably convenient for our access by car to Massey-Ferguson’s Harvesting and Tractors R&D centre at the Le Plessis Robinson (click here for map) ‘zipec’ (industrial zone), south of Paris. It was even more convenient for MF’s field test centre at Viarmes (click here for map), north of Paris, where I went with Gilbert Delfosse to see…well, I can’t remember which particular machine it was - probably a combine.
[**] during which (stroll) he introduced us to19th century 'Wallace Fountains' in Paris.
Jacques acted of course for many other clients, including some in the agricultural field, where Massey Ferguson did most of its business, and in particular a Dutch firm called ‘Petrus Wilhelmus Zweegers’, who held all the then-currently-important patents on tractor-drawn rotary mowers. Indeed, Jacques was, I think I recollect, much-involved with patent-actions in France against several infringers of those patents. As a result, we were obliged to seek advice elsewhere on Massey-Ferguson’s MF70 rotary mower. We duly consulted a ‘heavyweight’ patent-attorney advisor from a different firm, one Robert Harlè, of the firm Harlè & Lechopiez. Well, well. Possibly good advice, but not the same as with Jacques. One practical point to mention about those days in the 1970s is that at Massey-Ferguson’s Detroit patent department, presided-over by John Shortley, ‘patent counsel’, was the ‘Patent Manager’ there, one Bob Gerhardt, (same ‘rank’ as Bryn Jones), who, in his spare-time set up a patent renewal business called ‘Master Data Centre’, (“MDC”), based, of course, on computer systems, and a direct competitor of ‘Computer Patent Annuities’ (CPA) whom UDL used, which was likewise set up at much the same time. There was money (nay, a fortune) to be made from setting-up such firms in those early days of computer systems. And Massey-Ferguson transferred all their patent renewals to MDC - this was a source of some regret to Jacques, who had hitherto handled Massey’s patent renewals in France, but who were evidently not used by MDC for their cut-price renewals service.
Many years later………(no clear recollection of the date……..must have been before 2002…….perhaps about mid-1990s) I received word that Jacques had died and I went (from my UDL Peterborough office) to his memorial service in Paris. But I do remember that it was a source of some sadness to me that I met no one that I recognised, from the office of Cabinet Fedit-Loriot. No doubt Jacques' partner, Monsieur Fédit, had long-since retired. And his colleague/assistant David Lévy had long-since left the firm to do, I think, ‘other things’, perhaps, than being a patent attorney - I don’t feel sure about that latter point. No doubt I should have made myself known at the time, but, me being me, I did not do so. Well, well. I don’t think I even found a ‘list of attendees’ on which to enter my name. Perhaps this online record now, is a slight recompense.