Consent Decree The 1956 negotiated settlement between AT&T and the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) that allowed AT&T to retain ownership of Western Electric if it manufactured only equipment of a type to be used for the provision of telephone service and only for Bell companies.The decree also prevented the Bell System from offering data processing services and other services not related to functions of a common carrier and required that Bell System patents be licensed to others on basis of reasonable fees.As a result,AT&T was forced to license its transistor technology to any company for $25,000. See also AT&T, common carrier, patent, and transistor. |