R. Hunt Esq
Lacock
30 April/52
Dr Sir
You me give me good news in saying that some parties have at length resolved to infringe my patents openly viz. for purposes of trade. <1>
This will give me the opportunity of obtaining the decision of a Court of Law, & of showing to the world that I claim no more than I have a right to claim under the existing patent laws –
Should it prove on the other hand that I have been misled by my legal advisors (whose advice I have always followed) I shall submit most readily to the judgment of the Court – You cannot think how glad I shall be to have the question of my rights finally settled by a competent tribunal –
I have not seen the Athenaeum for some weeks & consequently have not read the article you mention. <2> I will send for it, as I suppose by your mentioning it, it is of importance. – I am surprised to hear that an unfriendly notice has appeared in that journal respecting your Photography. <3> I thought you were on the best terms with the Editor, which though not excluding fair and free comment, ought surely to exclude anything written in an unfriendly spirit –
I am informed the Patent Law is as follows, for example with respect to the Collodion process.
If it had been patented, I could not have used it, nor the person who patented it, without my consent – so that a mutual contract would have been requisite.
Dr Sir Yours very truly
H. F. Talbot
Notes:
1. See Doc. No: 06600.
2. This was a review of Robert Hunt, Photography: a Treatise on the Chemical Changes Produced by Solar Radiation, and the Production of Pictures from Nature, by the Daguerreotype, Calotype, and other Photographic Processes (London: Griffin & Company, 1852), published in the The Athenaeum (London), n.1278, 24 April 1852, pp.461–462. The unknown reviewer felt that Hunt relied too much on the language of others, ‘adding some contributions of his own, not new, and not always very intelligible’. [See Doc. No: 06600].
3. Robert Hunt, Photography: a Treatise on the Chemical Changes Produced by Solar Radiation, and the Production of Pictures from Nature, by the Daguerreotype, Calotype, and other Photographic Processes (London: Griffin & Company, 1852).