TALKIE WAR IMMINENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 650, 30 April 1929, Page 11

TALKIE WAR IMMINENT

AMERICANS CHALLENGED IN EUROPE DISMAY IN THE INDUSTRY (United Service) LONDON, Monday, A sensational challenge to the Western Electric Company’s vigorous offensive in Britain is foreshadowed in an announcement in the “Observer.” This is to the effect that a European talkie combine lias offered to acquire British Instructional Films with a view to the production of talkies in England on a large scale. The deal would link up the most firmly established British producers with the European group which holds more than 500 patents for the film and disc methods of recording. The combine would be capable of competing with America in regard to cost, technical efficiency and immediate output in commercial quantities. Hostilities will be commenced on Tuesday in the Court of Chancery. Three German inventors, whose patents are owned by the European combine, are seeking to restrain the Hyde Park Cinemas from showing sound films over the Western Electric apparatus on the ground that it is an infringement of their basic patents. The Western Electric Company, the resources of which are enormous, is fighting the defendants’ case. The proprietors of 200 cinemas, who have made contracts with the Western Electric Company, are dismayed at the possibility of a protracted legal battle involving the attendance of inventors and experts from all over the world.