Philco v. RCA

When, in 1927, RCA evolved a new radio tube which needed no storage battery, Philadelphia Storage Battery Co. (Philco), faced with disaster, decided to make radios itself. Under earnest President James M. Skinner, Philco. in 1934, was making twice as many radios as RCA, annually accounting for 1,250,000 sets or 30% of all U. S. sales.

Last month hundreds of Philco employes marched across the Delaware River from Philadelphia into Camden, N. J., helped RCA employes win a six-week strike for more pay (TIME. July 27). Due in no small measure to the costs of the Camden rumpus, the earnings of RCA dropped some $200,000 below comparable 1935 figures in the second quarter of 1936.

Last week Philco and RCA tangled once more, this time in New York's Supreme Court. Charging that RCAgents had secretly wined & dined young Philco female employes, involving them in "compromising situations to induce them to furnish confidential information, documents and designs, irate Philco sought to enjoin & restrain RCA from using "devious methods of trade rivalry. Philco demanded the return of allegedly stolen secrets a settlement for "substantial expense and damage in endeavoring to protect its business and property from RCA depredations.

Unable to name the weak and treacherous employes RCA is supposed to have seduced, and unwilling to specify what secrets had been purloined, Philco nevertheless wailed: "-It has required the great-skill, invention, vigilance and effort successfully to develop and maintain such a business in the face of its highly competitive nature ... and particularly the competition of RCA ... by reason of its financial power and patent monopoly " By underhanded acts, complained Philco, RCA "is seeking further to extend and strengthen its domination and control of said industry."

In Manhattan, through Vice President & General Counsel Manton Davis, RCA declared that there was "no foundation whatsoever for the charges, denied them in toto.

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