Tri-Ergon

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The Tri-Ergon sound-on-film system was patented from 1919 on by German inventors Josef Engl, Hans Vogt, and Joseph Massolle. The name Tri-Ergon was derived from Greek and means "the work of three."

In 1926, William Fox purchased the Tri-Ergon patents from Triergon, Aktiengesellschaft, Zürich, Switzerland. There is no such firm listed with the Zürich register of commerce.

Fox also purchased sound-film patents from Freeman Harrison Owens (1890-1979) and Theodore Case (1888-1944). Fox used Case´s inventions for the new sound-on-film system called Fox Movietone. One of the first feature films to be released in Fox Movietone was Sunrise (1927) directed by F. W. Murnau.

Movietone and other sound-on-film systems were in competition with sound-on-disc systems such as Warner Bros. Vitaphone. However, sound-on-film systems soon became the standard, and sound-on-disc obsolete.

After Fox lost his company, in the early 1930s, he used the Tri-Ergon patents to sue the film industry and take an ownership in all sound films. The Tri-Ergon patents named particular technical features that preceeded all other sound-film patents, e. g. a flywheel on the sound drum. Fox first won his suit and then lost it in a unusual reversal of decision by the Supreme Court. In Germany, the Tri-Ergon patents were determined to be so strong, for a time all other sound film systems were shut out of that country.

A subsidiary, Tri-Ergon Musik AG of Berlin, made commercial phonograph records for the German, French, Swedish and Danish markets from about 1928 to 1932. Although the product was advertised as "Photo-Electro-Records," it is unknown whether the sound-on-film process was actually used in making them.