COLT’S PATENT FIRE Hartford, ARMS MANUFACTURING CO. Connecticut February Mr. Val A. Browning First Security Bank Ogden, Utah Dear 24, 1943 Building Val: I am enclosing herewith a copy of Herrstrom who is in charge of the Department. a letter received Patent Section of from Colonel the Ordnance Yesterday I talked with Colonel Herrstrom by telephone and learned from him that his letter was prompted by some concern about the restrictions placed on the Government in Article VIII of our Patent License Agreement dated March 5, 1938. He said that this article apparently restricts the Government in some way as to the purchase or manufacture of spare parts and that he is investigating the matter to see just what value may be attached to any restrictive rights that we may have. While I did not tell Colonel Herrstrom, the fact is that we (Browning and Colt's) do not have much of anything in the way of patent protection covering separately the individual parts of the Caliber .30 Guns. Furthermore, this Article VIII has always been of questionable value, as it is very doubtful whether we could successfully maintain the asserted right to restrict the Government to manufacture only onethird of the required spare parts, even in normal times. Certainly in time of war, we would not wish to place any restriction on the Government in this respect even if we had the right to do so. We, therefore, propose to formally notify the Government that for the duration of the war emergency, we will not assert any rights that we have or might have under the provisions of Article VIII. Before doing so, however, we should like to have your approval. I should appreciate it if you would telegraph me upon receipt of this letter. You have will been be interested required to to know entirely of the discontinue that as the end of this manufacture month, of we Caliber -oO0 Guns and to concentrate entirely on Caliber .50 Guns. We understand that this applies also to all other manufacturers of Caliber .30 Guns. This involves a difficult transition for us as much of the equipment we have been using for Caliber .30 Guns is obviously not adapted for Caliber -50 Guns. The situation has, however, been somewhat eased by a rather