Radio broadcast .. (1922-30)

Radio Broadcast As the Radio Corporation Sees the Patent Situation THE following letter from General Harbord, President of the Radio Corporation of America, sets forth the Corporation's views on the radio patent situation. In an editorial in our March issue we called attention to the possible harmful results of what seemed like a tendency on the part of the Corporation toward a monopoly in the production and sale of radio apparatus. Last month, we published an article entitled "Cooperative Competition", which showed how automobile manufacturers found a way out of a situation which seems to us similar in some respects to that now facing the radio industry. We are glad to publish General Harbord's letter, and we should be glad to publish letters from the companies on the other side of the controversy, for this is perhaps the most important question in the radio field and one on which all radio enthusiasts should have information — and tolerance. RADIO CORPORATION OF AMERICA, 233 Broadway, New York. Office of the President MR. ARTHUR LYNCH, EDITOR, RADIO BROADCAST. MY DEAR MR. LYNCH: I regret that absence from the City has prevented me from complying with your request transmitted to me by Mr. Stuart Crocker for a statement regarding the plans of the Radio Corporation with reference to the radio patents held by it. I think you will appreciate that it is impracticable in a new art such as radio to make a statement which shall at the same time be prophetic and accurate. Such a statement can only be based on present actual knowledge. It might at any time call for a restatement because of change of conditions. For the present, the best that any company in the radio industry can do is to make month to month decisions. If I may be permitted a word as to the purposes of the Radio Corporation, I would say that it was organized under the laws of the country for operating a lawful enterprise, for the same object which prompts the launching of any other business institution— service to the public with the hope of a fair return to the stockholders. In addition to this legitimate ambition for material success, the corporation has striven to be of service in a technical and patriotic way. It has aided in the development of radio art, and has furnished the first American owned and controlled means of direct commercial telegraph communication with the principal foreign countries, making the United States the great centre and leading factor in world radio communication. To achieve these ends it has been obliged to coordinate the inventive genius of many individuals. It has made great outlay for research and development work in perfecting its own inventions, and to advance the radio art it has also been considered wise to acquire the inventions of others. In no other way could the various improvements and best features of the numerous inventions — no one of them adequate in itself — which are regarded as requisite to satisfactory radio service, have been assembled and made available for the public in any one line of apparatus. Had the several inventors joined forces, the situation would have been the same under some other organization bearing a different title. Thus far, the public and a few manufacturers and dealers — some legitimate, but many of them infringers — haveprofited from the development and production of radio apparatus. The stockholders of this corporation whose money and faith in the patent laws have contributed to the technical achievements largely responsible for progress made have not yet drawn a dollar in profits. There have been some criticism against the Radio Corporation for bringing suit against various radio manufacturers for the infringement of patents. The cry of monopoly and the charge of oppression of small manufacturers are easily raised, and usually by those to whom the propriety of great exactness of speech does not appeal. The Radio Corporation had the absolute right to enforce every patent which it owned against every user. It did not, however, adopt this policy, but instead, in keeping with the high ideals which have characterized it since its inception, decided that if an amateur wanted to build his own set for his own amateur use he could do so, and that it would not, until further notice, treat such procedure as an infringement of its patent rights. But there is absolutely no reason why the Radio Corporation, which ought to earn dividends on the shares which it issued to clear this property represented by important patents, and which shares are now owned by over 33,000 stockholders, should allow this property and patents to be recklessly trespassed upon by hundreds of rival manufacturing companies, most of which make no contribution whatever to the art, have made no investment in property patent rights, and merely attempt to reap where others have sown. The Radio Corporation is therefore proceeding to enforce some of its rights by the normal orderly process of suit in the Federal Courts. It is not attempting to create a "monopoly; it is attempting to enforce the lawful rights limited in scope and in time which it has been necessary for it to acquire in order that the radio art might go forward. It is as important to the entire radio industry to have these patents judicially