New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1879-09-08
AwAR OVER THE TELEPHONES.
A LARGE NUMBER OF SUITS FOR INFRINGEMENTs

fBY TELrGRAPH To THE TRIBUNE

NOW PENDING.
fBY TELEGRAPH TIE TRIBuSEl
WASHINGTON, Sept This is probably the eve
of great telephone war; the end Of which no law
yer or layman can foresee. Already nearly hundred
patents embodying supposed improvements IN tele-
phones have been issued, aud more than dozen IN
reference suits are now pending before the Patent
Office brought in the names of as many patentees.
The general public knows only of the business
rivalry between the Bell Telephone Company on
the one hand and the Western Union Company,
owning the Edison patents on the other; but before
the Courts and the Patent Office the controversy
takes a character entirely different. The merits OF
the case are very difficult TO reach, and seem not to
be fully understood by experts On electricity
or patent law So many fine points in electrical
science and in patent law, the most evasive and
crooked of all branches of Jurisprudence, enter into
the matter that one becomes involved from the out
set in a labyrinth of technicalites so dense that
Just and Ineligible solution seems to be an impos-
ability The interference set for a hear
ing some time next February. and the time mean-
while being taken advantage OF by the counsel TO
take testimony bearing upon the cases.
Stripped of side issues the immediate controversy
npDears to be narrowed down to the question of pr
orty III the application of the principle of the undu-
latory current TO the transmission of spoken words
Severed years before the issuance of the first Amer
lean JelepnOnlc patent GERMAN named heistAperl-
,nented In telephones and is said to have succeeded
in transmitting musical tones and vowel sounds by
wire Refs published an account of his experiments
with plans an examination of which in the light of
to-day makes one marvel that success should have
eluded him. He made use of the same diaphragm
which forms part of all successful telephone sys
TENS.
In July of 1878, Elisha Gray. of Chicago, OBJ
tanned patent upon a system of transmitting musi-
cal sounds which il was thought at the time would
form the basis of a system of multiplex teleCraphy
Each note in the scale to be made the medium
of communication between different points. The
prncipe said to be theoretically perfect. Grays
patent was reissued on the 2sth of January, 1879.
and forms foundation OF the counter claim of the
Western Union against the Bell lelephoneCom-
pany go
Professor Bells patent, the application for which
was filed on the 14th of February, 1876, is based
upon the employment Of undulat0ry currents OF
electricity. The electrical current is never abso-
lutely broken, but effects produced by a varia-
ton In the strength of the current put upon the
WIRE This principle Is necessary part of every
successful telephone system, and by its means
every variation in the volume of the human voice
may be made TO produce corresponding variations
i'm the magnetic effects transmitted from point to
TO the discovery of the undulatory current princ-
pie but merely 10 it's application in the manner set
forth in ms application. The claim OF the Western
Union is that the principle of the undulatOry cur
rent was covered in the Gray patent. The settle
ment of this question viii probably he only the first
in the contest, however, which involves many other
points.