861.24/9–3049
The Chargé of the Soviet Union (Bazykin) to the Secretary of State
Sir: In acknowledging the receipt of the Department of State’s note of August 8 of this year with respect to compensation through the Government of the U.S.S.R. for American firms holding patents, I have the honor to inform you of the following:
The statement in your note of August 8 of this year to the effect that the Soviet Union is taking no action toward the fulfillment of the provisions of Article 4 of the agreement of June 11, 1942, which provide for the payment by the Soviet Union of compensation to patent-holders, is contrary to fact. As is known, the Soviet Purchasing Commission in the U.S.A. carried on negotiations, beginning with 1948, with the interested American firms with respect to the payment of compensation for the use of their patented processes in the U.S.S.R. In the course of these negotiations proposals of the Purchasing Commission as well as of the firms were discussed, as the result of which an agreement was reached with some of the firms regarding the basic conditions for payment of compensation to them for the use of their processes in the U.S.S.R.
[Page 746]If, however, the negotiations of the Purchasing Commission within the firms have not yet resulted in the conclusion of a contract with them, this was by no means through the fault of the Soviet side. For example, the negotiations which were being successfully carried on with the Max Miller firm1 were curtailed after the firm notified the Purchasing Commission that it had received a letter dated February 2, 1949, from the Department of State of the U.S.A., in which the latter expressed opposition to the coming into effect of the contract between the firm and the Purchasing Commission until a joint agreement was reached for the settlement of lend-lease accounts between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. As a result of the interference by the Department of State of the U.S.A. in the negotiations of the Purchasing Commission with the Max Miller firm, the contract agreed upon in the negotiations could not be signed.
Quite naturally, such interference by the Department of State of the U.S.A. has not facilitated a successful conclusion of negotiations between the Soviet Purchasing Commission and patent-holding American firms.
The Purchasing Commission is once more ready to continue negotiations with all seven firms in question on the conclusion of contracts which would definitively settle the question of accounts for the use by the Soviet Union of patents belonging to American firms. It is furthermore hoped that in the future the aforementioned obstacles to the reaching of an agreement between the Purchasing Commission and the American firms will not arise, and that an agreement satisfactory to both sides will be reached as a result of these negotiations.
Accept [etc.]
- Max B. Miller and Co., Inc., New York, N.Y.↩