Business & Finance: Light Bulb Monopoly?

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The Federal Government has filed suit against the General Electric Co., charging it with conspiracy in restraint of trade and violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law in its system for manufacturing and distributing electric light bulbs. The suit is mainly directed against a contract system between the General Electric and several companies engaged in distributing electric bulbs, as preventing competition. The petition declares that the Company does a business amounting to about $50,000,000 a year. General Electric claims patent rights for the exclusive manufacture of tungsten filaments used in the better grade of bulbs today.

Attorney General Daugherty declared that in 1921, General Electric made 71.9% of the business in electric bulbs in this country, totaling $47,286,000; that the Westinghouse and other companies as licensees of General Electric did 25.3% of the business, and that only 2.8% of electric lamp manufacturing was done that year by manufacturers independent of General Electric.

President Gerard Swope of the latter Company countered by pointing out that its rights to its patents have been upheld in the highest courts, and that its system of distributing lamps had been followed openly for twelve years, and investigated but not complained of by the Federal Trade Commission. "The General Electric Company awaits with confidence the definitive decisions of the courts!"