[LB054403], Letter from Thomas Alva Edison to Samuel Flood Page, Edison and Swan United Electric Light Co Ltd, November 9th, 1886
https://edisondigital.rutgers.edu/document/LB054403
Transcription
November 9th, 1886. S. Flood Page, Esq., Sec’y., The Edison &Swan United Electric Light Co., 13 Albert Mansions, Victoria Street, Westminster, London, K. C. ENGLAND. Dear Sir:- Referring to your favors with relation to my patent accounts, since my former correspondence with you, Mr. Insull and myself had the pleasure of an interview with Viscount Anson, one of your Directors, with relation to this matter. In your letter of the 11th June, you requested that I should supply you with the amount of the account which would have applied on the two patents, Nos. 2,502 and 2,336 of 1882. The work involved in dividing up my experimental expenses would be so heavy, that I think it hardly necessary to give you the detailed information as to these two particular patents. I find that the amount spent by me, since the signing of the agreement with your predecessors, the Edison Co., amounts to upwards of $75,000. If the account for patents was rendered in accordance with the agreement, your Company would have to pay double this amount if they took over the whole of the patents, or such part of it as is applicable to the various patents which they may decide to accept. You will therefore see that the suggestion made by me, that your Company should reimburse me simply for the actual amount of cash spent by me for patent fees and the preparing of the patents, is a very reasonable one for me to make. Lord Anson thoroughly understands my ideas in relation to this matter, and I would suggest that you have an interview with him on the subject. With relation to future patents, your Company has the right at the present time to acquire any patents that I may obtain, but the agreement does not provide for the taking out of these patents, inasmuch as I should myself be unwilling to incur the expense in the first case of having such work done. While I have every desire to assist your Company and to give them the benefit of any inventions that I may make, I must confess that I have no desire to invest a large amount of money in English patents, without any certainty of being able to obtain from your Company the reimbursement of such expenditure. I suggested to Lord Anson that it would be greatly for your interests, and certainly far more agreeable to me, that a supplemental contract should be entered into providing for dealing with this matter in the future. I proposed to him that your Company should engage a patent lawyer here acceptable to me, whose duty should be to prepare the patent papers, so far it is possible to prepare them on this side of the Atlantic, and then to forward the same to your Company, leaving it to you to decide for yourselves whether you desire to apply for the patents or not. The cost per application would be 10-10-0, provided that the same lawyer is engaged by you as the one employed by me to do my Ameri in work. If your Company is willing to reimburse me the amount I have already expended in the manner communicated to you in my previous letters, I shall be glad to enter into any agreement outlined above. Yours very truly, Thomas A. Edison