Motion Picture Herald (Nov-Dec 1934)

12 MOTION PICTURE HERALD November 10, 1934 THE WHY OF THE TRI-ERCON PATENTS (.Continued from preceding page) numbering 30, were then patented in virtually all important foreign countries, including the United States. They ranged from a "gamma-ray" patent to a "flywheel," and from a resistance amplifier to a "double printing" sound process. The rights to all of them were held by the original German Tri-Ergon company. After the first experiments, a demonstration of a Tri-Ergon sound system was staged in the Laboratory Kopenickerstrasse, Berlin, in March, 1921, and, on September 17, 1922, the first showing of sound films made by Tri-Ergon devices was held before a large gathering of motion picture technicians and production people, in the German Alhambra Cinema. Some weeks later, on October 19th, Hans Vogt reported on the results of the demonstrations before the German Kinematograph Society. Dr. Johannes Rolle further explained the demonstrations in an article in Kinotechnik, Volume 23, 1922. Meanwhile the Tri-Ergon stockholders got to worrying about their investments in the research and development of the various devices and they sold out in 1923 to M. Curti, a Swiss lawyer, who paid 1,000,000 Swiss francs for the whole works. (This sum, at the present rate of exchange, represents about $330,000.) To the three inventors went some $82,000 of the sale price and this they were compelled to use at once to satisfy debts which had accumulated during their four years of research. Set Out on Their Own The motion picture industry in Germany refused to take seriously the plans presented by the trio for furthering sound motion pictures, and so, backed by limited capital advanced by M. Curti, they set out to produce talking pictures on their own. They rented space in a dentist's house on Bulow Street in Berlin, where the acoustic conditions were fairly satisfactory, and proceeded to build a recording room, reproduction room and a combination wardrobe and dressing room. There were nearly 50 persons on the staff, and so far as is known they were paid little or nothing, working on promises of a future. On September 23, 1923, after weeks of tedious production, which never exceeded 150 feet a day, the first reproduction of the new Vogt Massolle Engl Tri Ergon sound film was reproduced, in the old Schubert Saal. This film was roadshowed some time later in the Marmorhaus, Berlin, and in other places, including Switzerland. The first money began to trickle in and the company started to show some gains. But the commercial and financial advisers of Tri-Ergon appeared to have exercised poor judgment in conducting the business affairs of the development and the Swiss lawyer Curti was bought out by three Swiss financial groups : Hugo Heberlein, Heuser Staub, both large textile manufacturers, and an unnamed Swiss bank. These three groups, through their acquisition of the whole of Swiss Tri-Ergon, A.G., obtained control of the 150 patent rights of the three inventors. They still hold them. Weary of the difficulties which plagued them, and disconsolate over the lack of financial success, the three inventors separated in 1925, Dr. Engl engaging privately as a reseachist, Mr. Massolle taking an advisory post with Tobis LOOK, SEE, HEAR IN ONE PROCESS A wire recorder on which, it is said, can be recorded the vibration of both light and sound waves, is being subjected to experimental tests at the Paramount studios in Hollywood. The new process, which the inventors believe ivill have a vital bearing on the future of radio, phonograph and film recording, is said to make use of the principle of arrested magnetism. Despite the fact that the inventors maintain it can record light as well as sound at the present stage of experimentation only sound is being recorded with complete success, the inventors say. Clay Woodmansee is credited with designing the wire recorder machine. Film in Germany and Vogt pursuing in his own laboratory the solution of other sound problems. At about this time, in 1925, the important Ufa-Film interests in Germany acquired a license for the German patent rights from the Swiss Tri-Ergon headquarters at St. Gallen, Switzerland, and produced, unfortunately for the immediate future of Tri-Ergon, a German language talker entitled, "The Girl with the Matches" (Das Madchen mit den Schwefelholzern) . The film was such a disappointment that it was almost immediately withdrawn from distribution and Ufa thence regarded the sound film as valueless. Accordingly, the company annulled its contracts with Tri-Ergon. The result was that on February 1, 1926, all TriErgon experiments came to a standstill. The next year, W. T. Case, a wealthy scientific experimenter, and a collaborator of Dr. Lee de Forest, then connected with the William Fox motion picture interests in New York, having stumbled across the Tri-Ergon patents while engaged in some sound research, influenced Mr. Fox to make a bid for the United States rights. These previously had been offered to the American "electrics" by the Tri-Ergon holding company of Switzerland. Mr. Fox, while still president of Fox Film, made the purchase for 200,000 Swiss francs (about $66,000 at the present rate of exchange). The story of how Mr. Fox took the patent rights with him when he sold his interests in his film companies has already been told. Meanwhile, in Europe, an "outsider" named Bruckman acquired the Tri-Ergon rights for Germany, founding the Tobis sound company. There followed legal skirmishes between Tobis and Klangfilm, founded in Germany by Siemens, and eventually agreements were drawn giving sound production rights in Germany to Tobis and the rights to manufacture sound systems to Klangfilm. When, in September, 1928, most of the German sound film patents were combined under the Tobis banner, the German rights to TriErgon were taken over by Tobis as a patent holding company, cooperating with Klangfilm in the matter of recording and reproducing. There exists in Germany at this time a legal situation over the status of the Tri-Ergon patents that is comparable to the controversy now raging in the x'Vmerican courts. The Supreme Court of Germany (Deutsches Reichsgericht) on December 22, will decide a bitterly contested action involving the "flywheel" and the "double printing" patents, between Ufa-Afifa-Schonger and Tobis, which, as the plaintiff, is in much the same position as William Fox. The five principal patents held by Tri-Ergon on applications granted originally to Vogt, Massolle and Engl by the Deutsches ReichsPatent Offices, Berlin, are : Deutsches Reichs-Patent No. 368,367, filed June 3rd, 1919, on a recording glow lamp invented by Hans Vogt in collaboration with Joseph Massolle and Dr. Jo Engl. Deutsches Reichs-Patent No. 368,383, filed April 15th, 1921, on a double printing process invented by Hans Vogt in collaboration with Joseph Massolle and Dr. Jo Engl. Deutsches Reichs-Patent No. 387,058. filed May 23rd, 1920, on a fly-wheel device invented by Hans Vogt in collaboration with Joseph Massolle and Dr. Jo Engl. Deutsches Reichs-Patent No. 387,059, filed July 26th, 1919, on a resistance amplifier invented by Joseph Massolle in collaboration with Hans Vogt and Dr. Jo Engl. Deutsches Reichs-Patent No. 389,598, filed June 6th, 1922, on a gamma ray process invented by Dr. Jo Engl in collaboration with Hans Vogt and Joseph Massolle. Deutsches Reichs-Patent No. 417,967, filed March 4th, 1919, on a photoelectric cell invented by Hans Vogt in collaboration with Joseph Massolle and Dr. Jo Engl. The specific claims set forth in the original German patent applications for the flywheel and the double printing process — both of which are involved at the moment in the American litigation launched by William Fox against all producers, distributors and film laboratories were : Flywheel — Equipment for phonographs for the steady drive of the linear phonogram track, especially intended for the purposes of the sound film, whereby in the interest of a constant and adjustable average speed at the spot of control the phonogram track is coupled with a rotating flywheel; (b) a method whereby a speed controller and speedometer are used; (c) a method whereby two rotary systems control the phonogram track; (d) a method whereby the film feed sprockets of the rotary systems possess different circumferential speed; (e) a method whereby a friction coupling is used between the phonogram track and the rotary system. Double Printing — A method for the making of positive films which contain pictures and photographically recorded sound, whereby the negatives are developed separately; (b) a method whereby the recording of the sound and the photography of the picture is done on the same film which is separated afterwards ; (c) a method whereby the negatives are lengthwise combined with each other after the treatment. Meanwhile the fight for royalties proceeds merrily in the courts of both countries, with the inventors looking in from the outside. Laemmie, Jr., Says "U" May Not Produce Abroad Carl Laemmie, Jr., arriving in New York Tuesday from Hollywood, said Universal has made no definite plans to produce pictures either in England or elsewhere in Europe. Mr. Laemmie will sail November 23. "Nothing is definite and we may not even produce in England," he said. Accompanying the Universal production chief were Harry Zehner, his assistant; Polan Banks, author, and Archie Cottier, song writer.