[D8954ACL], Letter from Dyer and Seely to Alfred Ord Tate, June 22nd, 1889
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Title
[D8954ACL], Letter from Dyer and Seely to Alfred Ord Tate, June 22nd, 1889
Editor's Notes
In reply to your letter of the 21st inst. We have to say that under the Portuguese patent law, patents are onsidered as being granted for the full term of fifteen years although the taxes may be paid for only five years when the patent is issued and under the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Bate case the United States patent runs until the actual expirationof the monopoly in the foreign country. So long as the Portuguese patent is maintained therefore there is no danger to the United States patent and In Portugal the fee for the full term can be paid at any time when it is desired to do so. For this reason we concluded to take out only a five years patent in Portugal in order to save the expense of paying all the taxes now.####We will say that in our next bill against Mr. Edison we shall credit him with the difference in the cost between a five year and a fifteen year Portuguese patent. In our bill for these foreign patents we charged for a fifteen year patent, but afterward in view of the Bate decision and of a decree of the Portuguese government we decided that it was not only necessary to pay the taxes for five years.
Author
Recipient
Mentioned
Date
1889-06-22
Type
Folder/Volume ID
D8954-F
Microfilm ID
127:280
Document ID
D8954ACL
Publisher
Thomas A. Edison Papers, School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers University