Royalty has been paid on this apparatus...

[Graham G3ZVT]

Royalty has been paid on this
apparatus pursuant to a licence of the
Broadcast Sound and Television
Reciever Licence known as "A6"
autherising the use of certian British
and Eireann letters Patent.
Serial No _____


(Cossor 916 Television probably manufactured in 1950)




I was surprised to find that a Google search on a snippet of the above words only brings up four "hits", two from this forum where it was mentioned in passing, and two others from elsewhere.

I find these little hidden-away plaques quite evocative, and I thought it was time a thread was dedicated to them.

The first one I noticed was probably on our HMV Radiogram when I was a child in the '50 or early '60s

I probably wondered what "pursuant" meant and what "Letters Patent" were. Not to mention "Eireann".

No doubt I thought the licence was one the owner had to buy at the Post Office, Intellectual Property wasn't a concept I knew much about then.

So, what variations on this form of words are they? "A6 is sometimes "A6-S" or "A8-S" apparently. What's the difference?
Who actually provided these plates? The standardisation between manufacturers suggests they didn't make their own.

Lastly, what if anything can be gleaned from the engraved serial number?

[crackle]

An interesting question, if there is no information around detailing the various licence terms like A6 then maybe if enough people post photos of their various licence plates and what equipment it came from then it provide a means to solving the question.

Here are a couple more examples.

Ever Ready Sky Leader MW & LW Transistor radio 1958 "A7-S"


KB MR10 valve radio MW LW & FM 1955 "A7-S."


Mike

[mark2collection]

I've often wondered, the absence of said license plate (yet clearly an outline of where one used to be) in a set, was this removed when we no longer had to have a radio license, or do they just fall off ...

Will be watching this post with interest, & when I'm back home, I'll take pictures of the license plates in my sets.

Mark

[Mike. Watterson]

In various countries various companies claimed to "own" the idea of radio via Patents. Especially the Superhetrodyne

RCA, Telefunken, Philips, Marconi in various countries.

So in the UK royalty had to be paid to Marconi. There may have been a pool of holders (Perhaps GEC), like GSM, 3G and 4G.

Note that the Marconi domestic radios after 1928, just like HMV and UK branch of Columbia are NOT Marconi, but "really" EMI with agreement to use the name. Just like to day where Alcatel and Blackberry are licensed badges used by TCL. Philips TV, Philips AV are licensed badges to two different companies.

Anyway, in this case the Licence is showing royalty is paid to the patent holders (which may have been several companies in UK). It's separate to the Radio Receiving Licence (you needed a separate one for car radios, hence "convertible" transistor sets in 1960s).

I'm sure I once read an explanation in a book, but not of the A5, A6, A7 etc.

[Mike. Watterson]

Originally Posted by mark2collection

was this removed when we no longer had to have a radio license, or do they just fall off ...

It's nothing to do with the user's radio reception licence. They fall off. Some are pinned.

There was also a per valve royalty in various countries but not USA, hence one reason many USA sets had more valves. See BVA.

[mark2collection]

It's nothing to do with the user's radio reception licence.

I wondered if the radio owner would have removed the license plate, much like car owners in the UK removing tax discs from the windscreen, when displaying a valid tax disc was no longer a legal requirement.

Interesting topic.

Mark

[Nuvistor]

I think it would have fell off, the owner probably never give that plate a thought, unlike a car tax disc that was the keepers job to renew and display.

[crackle]

Has anyone else got any examples of different labels.
The early KB radios displayed this licence plate, there was no sign of the other type of licence on KB radios from around this date.
But I notice that earlier radios often displayed a BBC licence transfer.
KB 214 MW & LW valve radio 1930


Mike

[emeritus]

The patent laws of most countries have a "Marking" requirement which means that, unless you mark a patented product with the number of the patent, then you will have difficulties in enforcing your patent against someone who had infringed it before they became aware of its existence. Giving notice of the licence would have avoided having to provide a list of all the patents the licence included.

My first transistor radio, a Bush TR104, had one of those labels. When the case broke after I had dropped it, I got a replacement from Bush and didn't bother transferring the label over.

[peter_scott]

There is reference this type of licence here:
https://tinyurl.com/ybdmxkr6

Peter

[Graham G3ZVT]

Originally Posted by mark2collection

I wondered if the radio owner would have removed the license plate

These little plates were often hidden away inside the set, sometimes on the inside of the back cover, so most owners would be unaware of their existence.

As "emeritus" said, it's as if it just had to be present to satisfy some regulation. It didn't matter if you couldn't see it.

[Philips210]

Hi.

I just had a look through a few of my radios and the licence plates were as follows:

Bush DAC10 A7-S plate

HMV 1415 A7-S plate

Vidor CN432 A7-S plate

Roberts R200 A8-S plate

Perdio PR36 Fanfare A8-S plate

Perdio PR73 Continental A8-S plate.

From this small sample, it would appear that the valve sets either table or portable type have the A7-S plate, whereas all the transistor sets have the A8-S plate.

I'll try to add some more to the list in due course.

Regards
Symon.

EDIT: It would appear the changeover from A7-S to A8-S occured around the introduction of transistor sets as some early transistor sets have the A7-S plate.

[Graham G3ZVT]

And A6 for television perhaps?
Hard to tell with a sample size of 1 so far.

[McMurdo]

Marconi was actually mentioned in the earlier ivorine plates.

Here's the license label on a Lissen in my bedroom which it has instead of a plate. (dates from 1935). The patent numbers are listed if anyone can find what they are.

[Synchrodyne]

Originally Posted by rambo1152

And A6 for television perhaps?
Hard to tell with a sample size of 1 so far.

A6 was also used for radio equipment. For example see the fourth picture in the first post of this old thread:

https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...light=londoner,

The unit at interest was an Armstrong BS125, which model was available from late 1953 through early 1959 as best I can work out.

Possibly confusing is that this series of pooled patents used identifiers that overlap with the more general patent number suffixes:

http://filehistories.clarivate.com/d...%20Country.pdf


Cheers,

[sexton_mallard]

Here is the license plate on a Pye P45 (Dundrum, Dublin made) showing A6.

[emeritus]

Re #14, copies of old UK patents can be viewed or downloaded for free from a number of official web sites such as the epo's espacenet or the German patent office's depatisnet (it has an English language interface which I find easier to navigate than the epo one). The country code for British patents is "GB" and for patents of this age you only need the six-digit number, not the year. Giving the year is a hangover from the original numbering system where numbering started from 1 on the first of January every year, so both number and year were necessary. Circa 1920 this changed, and patents started being numbered sequentially starting from 100,000. Letter suffixes were not used by the UK patent office before circa 1978, although they have been applied retrospectively in computerised databases.

[Phil G4SPZ]

The wording suggests that the "A6", "A7-S" etc refer to the then-current version of the Post Office receiving licence, so the numbers may be simply date-related.

My Ever Ready Sky King, Ever Ready N3, Ever Ready Sky Countess, Vidor My Lady Catherine and Ekco MPB183 all have an "A7-S" plate, whereas my Roberts R200 has an "A8-S" plate. My Bush TR82C has no plate at all.

[Graham G3ZVT]

The wording suggests that the "A6", "A7-S" etc refer to the then-current version of the Post Office receiving licence...

I can understand why many would think that, but I don't believe it has anything to do with the wireless receiving licence. Rather it's a receiver licence that shows that the manufacturer paid royalties to the patent holders a variety innovations used by the set.

[Radio Wrangler]

And after a time patents expire, so a patent pool organisation gets weaker unless it keeps putting new patents into the pool and those patents are needed in order to make a useable product. Else, the cartel can be escaped.

This game is still played today. Firms try to get their patented technologies used in standards used for broadcasting or cellular telephone networks. Usually the standards setters spot the risk and place contractural obligations on such patent holders for specified and reasonable licence fees, but there have been cases where some chip manufacturer's patents have become an essential part of a system without any checks. So we have phone manufacturers trying to sue each other's socks off and starting counter-suits, as well as some semiconductor firms operating like patent trolls. The posturing resembles sumo wrestling and the money in eventual out-of-court settlements is never mentioned, though the claimed damages make headlines. And the lawyer's take is never ever revealed. Telephone numbers are far smaller

David