ABSTRACT
A long patent litigation with Edison ended in a cross-licensing agreement on 7 Dec 1896. Market success was achieved with the Graphophone Grand player, developed by Macdonald, in 1898. The important industry figure Frederick M. Prescott was an officer in the company in 1899-1900. AGC had a legal master-mind, Philip Mauro, who brought patent actions against various parties in the recording industry; he won injunctions against Hawthorne & Sheble (to stop them from unauthorized conversions of Edison machines into Graphophone Grands), Frank Seaman, and Emile Berliner. An early attempt to enter the disc field was stopped (1899) by a Berliner suit; but AGC was able to produce discs 1902-1906, using the patents of Joseph Jones. They also sold (1905) the “Twentieth-Century” graphophone, with a six-inch mandrel. At that time there was a general reorganization of the Easton interests, and AGC was absorbed into the Columbia Graphophone Co. [Klinger; Wile 1974; Wile 1990.]
See also American Talking Machine Co.; Columbia; Vitaphone
A New York firm, which made the first U.S. home disc recorder, marketed in August 1920.
