RADIO PATENT RIGHTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21515, 12 June 1933, Page 9

RADIO PATENT RIGHTS

PAYMENTS BY BOARD NOTICE OF TERMINATION ROYALTY FROM LICENCE FEES [by TELEGRAPH —OWN correspondent] WELLINGTON, Saturday An important step affecting the future conditions of radio broadcasting in New Zealand has been taken by the Government. The Postmaster-General, the Hon. A. Hamilton, announced to-day that official notice has been given Amalgamated Wireless of Australasia, Limited, to terminate the patent right agreement under which 3s from every radio listener's fee, which is 30s, is paid to the company as a royalty for the use of basic patents held by it and regarded as essential in radio broadcasting. The agreement has been in existence several years, and the notice just given will terminate it 12 months hence. The Australian Government, which also has an agreement with Amalgamated Wireless involving a royalty payment of 3s per listener's licence, gave notice about two months ago of its intended termination. Early in the existence of the Radio Broadcasting Company of New Zealand the question of claims for patent, royalties upon the plant used at its various stations was taken up by the Government, which intimated that it had assumed full responsibility, that the company was its agent, and that all claims would have to be made against the Government direct. Some years later, in June, 1928, Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia), Limited, which claimed ownership of a large number of wireless patents, including those of Marconi, "<Jiiade_ an agreement with the Commonwealth Government that if it could prove the validity of certain patents a royalty of 3s a year would be paid on every receiving set licence in the Commonwealth. After winning a legal action in Melbourne, the company secured payment of the royalty. In December, 1928, the managing director visited New Zealand, and held conferences with the Postmaster-Gen-eral and departmental officers, as a result of which the bona fides of the company's claim were admitted and the Government agreed to allot 3s from each annual broadcast, receiving licence fee as a royalty on the company's patents. An arrangement was for a period extending to October, 1932, regarding royalties on apparatus used in the Government's commercial wireless stations, on which no royalties had been paid since the of the first of them some 20 years earlier. The Marconi Company's claim for royalties on receiving sets made in Britain originally stood at 12s 6d a valve-holder and was added to the selling price. A Patent Office tribunal in 1928 reduced it to 10 per cent on the wholesale selling price of the set. The companv had this decision upset m the Courts," but in consequence of protests that the old rates would strangle an infant industry it agreed to a reduction. A claim for 12s 6d a valve-holder was made at one time in Australia, but as an outcome of a Royal Commission s report it was decided that nothing should be paid for five years and that the validity of the patents should be decided. , , „ So far as can be gathered, the question now at issue is whether the Australian and. ISgw Zealand Governments intend to recognise the existence or private property and patent rights in regard to certain basic devices and arrangements of apparatus that are essential to broadcast transmission and reception.