§ MR. MACFIEasked the under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, If he has any information regarding the intended conference on Patents for Inventions at Vienna, which he will now state or will lay upon the Table; and, if Government will anywise be represented there provided the principle or policy of Patents is not assumed to be acquiesced in by persons participating in the deliberations?
§ VISCOUNT ENFIELD,in reply, said, Her Majesty's Government had heard nothing of any proposed conference on Patents at Vienna since April last, when the United States Minister wrote unofficially to Her Majesty's Ambassador, saying that a conference among the Exhibition Commissioners on the subject had been mooted. It did not appear that that was to be a conference of an 311 official or international character, and the Austro-Hungarian Government did not ask for any suggestions upon the subject, or invite representatives from other Powers to attend; and Her Majesty's Government did not know whether the project was going to be carried out or not.