Who invented the television set and is the invention copywrighted?

who inveneted the television.. and all the companies that make tV's now (sony, toshiba, etc) do they have to pay royalties for the invention of the Televison?

While electromechanical techniques were developed prior to World War II, most notably by Charles Francis Jenkins and John Logie Baird, all-electronic television systems relied on the inventions of Philo Taylor Farnsworth, Vladimir Zworykin and others to produce a system suitable for mass distribution of television programming. Commercial broadcast programming, following years of experimental broadcasts seen only in a few specially-equipped homes, occurred in both the United States and the United Kingdom before World War II.

Inventions are not copyrighted, they are patented. If a patent was filed for televisions, they have expired by now.

The original U.S. television patent was filed by Philo Farnsworth shortly after World War II.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television