Mr. Adee to Mr. Phelps.
Washington , October 7, 1892 .
Sir: I have received your No. 487, of the 22d ultimo, concerning the protection of American inventors in Germany. You are correct in your inference that the Department’s instruction No. 465, of the 5th [Page 198] ultimo, was indicted and forwarded just previous to the receipt of No. 477 of August 28 last. The note of the German Government referred to in that dispatch has since been received and acknowledged.
For your information and file I inclose a copy of Baron von Ketteler’s note of the 15th ultimo, setting forth the reasons that prompt his Government in not making the desired publication provided by section 2, paragraph 2, of the new German patent law of April 7, 1891, in the Imperial Law Journal, in order that protection may be extended to American inventors in Germany, especially in view of the liberality of our patent laws.
In sending a copy of this note to the Secretary of the Interior for the information of the Commissioner of Patents, comment was made as follows:
The Department fails to see the conclusiveness of the German reasoning in this case for its refusal to publish the notice repeatedly requested by this Government through its minister at Berlin.
There is, however, an intimation in Baron Ketteler’s note that a reply to the counter proposition of the United States in the matter of the pending negotiation for the protection of patents, samples, and trade-marks may be expected at an early date. The conclusion of such an arrangement may provide a remedy for this unequal and unsatisfactory situation in the absence of a public statute such as was presented at the last session of Congress.
Baron Ketteler’s note was simply acknowledged by subject.
This action of the German Government necessarily estops you from carrying out the the direction in instruction No. 465, unless that Government shall voluntarily renew the subject. But it is not to be expected, after the assembling of Congress in December next, unless the conclusion of the proposed convention with Germany alters the situation, that this Government will submit to its citizens being thus denied their clear right in Germany which the laws of that country grant as a reciprocity for the more liberal privileges extended to foreigners by our statute.
I am, etc.,
Acting Secretary.