GOVERNMENT: Lights Out

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General Electric Co. was ordered last week to open to the public all its patents for the manufacture of incandescent lamps. In the history of contested antitrust suits it was the first time a company had been ordered to make an outright gift of its trade secrets.

The order came from Federal District Judge Phillip Forman of Trenton, N.J., who had found G.E. and six other defendants* guilty of monopolizing bulb manufacture through control of patents. Judge Forman also ordered that 1) the defendants share all future patents with the rest of the industry, 2) G.E. and International G.E. stop discouraging partly owned foreign companies from competing in the U.S. lamp market, 3) all bulb agreements between the defendants be ended.

The Government had also asked that G.E. be ordered to get rid of half its lamp-making facilities. But Judge Forman tossed out the U.S. request as "neither feasible nor in the public interest." G.E. has not decided whether it will appeal.