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Hokitika Guardian, 16 June 1933, Page 4

Eakly 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 ag-optj and that all ciaims would hnya ip.rbe made against the Government, Some years later, in June, 1928, Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia), Limited, which c Limed ownership of a large number of wireless patents, including these of Marconi, made an agreement with the Commonwealth Gov~rnm.cnt that if it could prove the validity of certain nate’ts a royalty of 3s a year would be paid on every receiving set !:cemv> in the Commonwealth. After winning the 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-General and departmental officers, a/? a result of which the bona f’deis of the company’s claim were admitted and the Government agreed to allott os from each annual: broadcast receiving licence fee as a royalty on the company’s patents. An arrangement was also made 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 establishment 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 12)3 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 com winy had this decision upset in the Courts, hut in consequence of protests that the old rates would strangle an infant industry it agreed to a reduction. A claim for 12s fid a Valve-holder was made at ore time ■ n Australia, but as an outcome of a Dcut! Commission’s roonrt its was decided that nothing should be "rid fn r five years and that the validity of the patents should be decided. So far as can be gathered, the auceticn now at issue is whether the Australia" <md New Zealand Gevm-mnents intend to recognise the existence of private provertv avd patent rights in regard to eorto’n basic devices and lo.rwn?»•'*meets of aupamtus that, ore Accrual +o broadcast transmission and reception.