MONOPOLY RIGHTS

Waipawa Mail, Volume XLIX, Issue 152, 14 September 1928, Page 1 (Supplement)

MONOPOLY RIGHTS

RADIO COMPANY’S ABUSE LONDON. Aug. 24. The Patent Office announces that & special tribunal heard the Locwe Radio Company’s application for either a compulsory license under or revocation of five letters patent owned by the Mar coni Wireless Telegraph Company and the British Thompson Houston Company. The tribunal is satisfied that an abuse of the monopoly rights have been established and has decided that the applicants should be granted a license, paying royalties of 10s for each triple valve, and 7s (Id each to double valve, subject to a condition wider which the parties are allowed 21 days to settle. The applicants claimed that wireless receiving sets equal to three valve could be made and sold in Britain for .'los each, and eventually under mass production for 25s wholesale. The price in Germany is 25s and retail 39s Cd. Royalties amounting to £35,000 were paid by the Telef'unken Company in 1927. Loowes are prepared 0 pay equivalent royalties to Marconi’s, and are also anxious immediately to transfer the manufacture to Britain. The Comptroller-General and the As-sistant-Comptroller, in announcing this decision, are of opinion that royalties of 37s (id on Locwe triple valve and 02s (id on long range sets are over-high. The respondents’ insistence on the and their refusal of more reasonable terms prejudiced the establishment of a new British industry, and their commercial policy excluding large sections of the public from the full enjoyment of broadcasting, is not justifiable.