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Document number: 4656
Date: 03 Dec 1842
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: CLAUDET Antoine François Jean
Collection: National Science and Media Museum, Bradford
Collection number: 1937-4920
Last updated: 5th September 2012

Paris
3 December 1842

Sir,

I have received your favour of the 22d Ult,<1> in answer to my proposal for an agreement between us by which you would grant me a license for working the Calotype process in London &c.

Your observations upon several clauses of my draught of agreement have been carefully examined by me & I shall try to meet your views as much as I can. But there are several objections which are not materially important & which I think I can easily remove.

I do not wish to bind you legally to communicate to me any improvements you might make in your process except if you were to take a new patent for them. Otherwise you might prevent me to practice such improvements, & grant licenses to others. In this as in many others of your objections, you must observe that as long as I am obliged to pay you a percentage upon what I sell it is your interest to enable me to work with the greatest perfection possible. Therefore I would not ask you to bind yourself legally to communicate to me any improvements except those appertaining to the Calotype process & which you might obtain a patent for. I would leave to your judgement & discretion to communicate to me any private improvements you might make in the course of your experiments. Of course you understand perfectly that what is my interest on this ground is also yours.

I have asked I think, to bind you not to license other practises in London & at a distance of 20 miles. You prefer 10. I agree to that, as my only object is to prevent opposition too near my establishment, & 10 miles are enough for that purpose.<2>

My objection to your reserving to yourself the right of licensing others to take views of buildings, statues, &c is that, it would be very difficult to prevent such parties to apply their apparatus to portrait taking & they could do it without being easily detected, for, their excuse would be that they had the right of practising the process & that in taking portraits they were only experimenting &c &c. If you were to grant a license to an artist, a portrait painter, or any other, he might buy a license apparently to take views of objects of art & he would use the process to take portraits from which he could paint on ivory or canvass. I think therefore that it would be more satisfactory to both parties, to give me a license unlimited for any application of the process. You may rely upon my activity for working out all possible applications & it will save you a great deal of trouble in leaving the whole to me. We might agree that I could authorize other persons to take views of buildings or any other objects, in giving you notice of my doing so & in paying you the same percentage upon their sale. By this arrangement I would have sufficient control upon what would be going on & our security against infringements would be more complete. In this case I would not object to the clause that if in any year, except the first year, the sum payable to you should fall short of £ 400 then you would be at liberty to grant other licenses in London.

In agreeing to pay you a percentage upon the amount received for pictures, I understand (& it cannot be otherwise) that it is only upon the amount charged by me for such pictures exclusive of the cases, frames, or mounting upon which I have a very small profit & which may be sometimes very expensive. For the Daguerreotypes, I charge £ 1 · 1 · 0 & the sitter pays besides the price of the case which is from 2/6 to 15/ & persons of wealth might require still more expensive mountings. For a case or frame we cannot charge a great deal more than the cost price. At all events this part of the business is quite distinct from the portrait taking & is not connected with my patent right.

Respecting the clause to bind you to take proceedings against parties infringing the patent right, I would not bind you to do so when absent from England. But in your own interest it must be agreed that infringers will be stopped & that if in a reasonable time (say 4 months) you have done nothing to protect your patent right, it will be supposable that you consider that you cannot substantiate it at law. In which case many other infringers are sure to rise, and then, I would be either obliged to give up practising the process or to compete with parties practising without having anything to pay to you. Therefore, it should be agreed that if after 4 months of notice of parties notoriously infringing your patent right, you have taken no proceedings against them, then you will not be entitled to any percentage from the time the infringement to has begun. It might be agreed, for my protection, that in case you were 4 months without taking proceedings, I would have the right to bring the action myself in your name, at my own risk & expense, but on condition that from that moment you would be no longer entitled to any percentage.

I agree to the clause by which portraits will not be sold under 10/6 & other pictures under 5/. Unless we mutually fix otherwise.

To simplify the question of percentage, let us agree that in all cases you will be entitled to receive 25 percent upon any amount charged for portraits or views, or any other objects, exclusive of the mountings or frames which will be charged over & above the price of any picture.

I have no objection to the clause by which I shall not be allowed to part with the negative pictures or portraits without Mr Talbot’s leave, & to sell or give away the prepared calotype paper. But I would not be prevented to sell paper which might be employed by others in the calotype process. I intend to make arrangements with a French paper manufactory for producing a paper more fit for Calotype operations than any others & in such a case I might be obliged to resell what I could not employ myself.

I think I should be authorized to sell paper either prepared or unprepared to all persons having the right to practise the calotype in England, & of course the paper unprepared to any body for any purpose.

I hope that you will find all my observations just & fair & that nothing will now delay our preparing the deed. My Solicitor is Mr Th. Dry. 21 Lincoln Inn Field & if you call upon him, he will be prepared to make the draught.

Mr Lerebours <3> has received your specimens from your friend, & he is very much obliged for your attention. I have spoken to him of our arrangement & he would be glad to make a similar one with you for practising your process in France or Paris.

I remain, Sir, Your obedient Servant
A Claudet

Would you be kind enough to let me know what ingredients are better to avoid or to use in manufacturing the Paper fit for the Calotype.

H. Fox Talbot Esqr
31 Sackville Street


Notes:

1. Not located.

2. Sadly, it was this sort of restriction that greatly inhibited the takeup of the Calotype as a commercial process. In contrast, there were dozens of Daguerreotype studios competing in London at the time.

3. Noel Paymal Lerebours (1807–1873), optician, of Lerebours & Secretan, Paris.

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