"INTERLOCKED."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 230, 28 September 1935, Page 12

"INTERLOCKED."

WORLD-WIDE PATENTS

RADIO AND SOUND FILMS.

QUESTION OF COPYRIGHT,

(By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Friday. The phenomenal rise in the number of inventions relating to telegraphy and telephony, which the New Zealand Patents Office noted in 1034, has been maintained this year, according to its latest report. There were 300 patents recorded under this head, compared with 313 in 1933, which wfjs the peak year. An interesting general reference is made by the commissioner to the worldwide- importance of patents and their tender, cy to become "interlocked." This fundamental aspect of the matter, he states,..is becoming increasingly important in these days of industrial aggregation and particularly so at the present time in regard to the* radio industry, in which considerable inventive and commercial activity is manifest.. ' . "In this connection," he continues, "it should be noted that in modern times there is an increasing tendency for certain classes of patents to become legally and industrially interlocked. Thus we find that although 'news' is ordinarily regarded as belonging to the domain of copyright, a strong effort was made at the International Conference for the Protection of Industrial Property held in London in 1934 to have news included in the convention as being a form of indusfrial property. Radio Inventions. "On the other hand persons interested in radio inventions and the like are vitally interested in a proposal that may he made to the International Copyright Conference of 1936 to limit the right of local legislatures to regulate the conditions under which copyright material may he communicated to the general public l>y radio. Further, we find that inventors are giving .great attention to radio and sound by means of which copyright material is conveyed from the creator to the consumer.

"There is also a marked tendency for broadcasting inventions to pass into the hands of largo combines and for the owners of inventions to enhance the value of their monopolies by becoming the owners of corelated copyright. There aro thus growing up various powerful groups. whose interests, in patents and copyright are almost inseparably interwoven. These interests being purely commercial do not invariably harmonise with the public interest." Public Well-being. • The commissioner finally suggests that care should be taken that monopolies granted to foster the public wellbeing are not allowed to defeat their own ends by enriching private enterprise; unduly at the expense of the State.-