Boost for Color TV

Justice Department trustbusters and Radio Corporation of America executives heaved a sigh of relief last week. The department won what Attorney General William Rogers said was one of its "most important antitrust cases." Said RCA Legal Vice President Robert L. Werner: "We made a good settlement."

In a sweeping civil consent decree in one of the biggest Eisenhower Administration Sherman Act suits to date, RCA agreed to 1) put some 100 color TV patents into a royalty-free pool, 2) make available to all comers on a royalty-free basis at least 12,000 other existing radio-TV patents, 3) license all new patents during 'the next ten years at a "reasonable" royalty rate. The Justice Department also won a criminal case against RCA. U.S. District Court Judge John F. X. McGohey in Manhattan fined RCA $100,000 when the company pleaded nolo contendere toa four-count criminal indictment on monopoly charges.

At the heart of the civil consent decree was tacit and sympathetic recognition by the Justice Department that dear to RCA is the development of color TV, in which the corporation has invested $130 million to date. In early negotiations RCA's Board Chairman David Sarnoff fought hard to keep complete patent power over his multichrome pet.

Then RCA President John L. Burns sat in on the negotiations. In what the department considers "a stroke of industrial statesmanship," an agreement was reached on a color TV patent pool.

The trustbusters agreed with Burns's reasoning that a pool would serve to spur color experimentation, foster industry wide cooperation, yet still not place RCA at a competitive disadvantage. Before color TV will be a success, say commercial manufacturers, a better and cheaper way must be found to make sets. Said a trustbuster: "The pool is an RCA gamble to open up the field."

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