The law suit RCA vs. Zenith; 1953 stolen technology

[John Folsom]

The Zenith 15" color sets came with RAULAND built versions of the RCA 15GP22. RCA was eager to license the CRT design to other manufactures, so it would seem unlikely that there would be any dispute over a Rauland built version. But I don't have any knowledge of legal issues one way or the other.

The 15HP22 was built by CBS-Hytron, and used the same electron gun and convergence scheme as a 15GP22, but had the phosphor dots placed directly on the faceplate of the CRT, with a curved shadow mask behind it. The RCA design 15GP22 had a flat phosphor dot plate with a flat shadow mask behind it. RCA was obliged to spend a million dollars for rights to the Hytron invention, and used it to produce the 21AXP22. To my knowledge, Hytron only produced the 15HP22 and the 19VP22 (which used magnetic convergence). I wonder if RCA bought exclusive rights to the Hytron dots-on-the-faceplate/curved shadow mask invention? Or did Hytron just get out of the color CRT business because they could see that the immediate business prospects for color TV looked grim?