Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1881-11-30

An Important Suit Involving the
Credit of Hts Invention and Large
Amounts OF Capital.

Credit of Hts Invention and Large
Amounts Of Capital.
From the New York Post Nov. IT.
/ About three years ago the 'Peoples Tele-
phone company" was organized for the manu-
facture and sale of telephones made after q pat
tern of which one Daniel Draw baugh, an in
ventive genius living in the wilds of Penn
| sylvania, claimed to be the inventor. Suits
were at once begun by the company owning the
Bell. Edison and Gray patents, those patents
being controlled by one company, and tenn
! pOrary injunction was obtained restraining the
Peoples Telephone company from selling their
telephones This was the first step in patent
suit which has become celebrated. and of which
the last and most important stages are about to
occur.
The enormous Importance of the suit will be
appreciated at once when it is stated that the
result of the suit, in case Drawbaugh should
prove his claims, would be to reduce the cost of
telephones to an almost nominal price, unless
| the patent commissioners should issue patent
to Drawbaugh, in which case the public would
be no better off than at present and the
telephone business would remain a mOnOpOly as
complete as that of the manufacture OF sewing
machines was ten years ago.
In the original answer of the Peoples CON-
pany to the application for an Injunction of the
Bell, Gray and Edison companies Drawbaugh
sets forth that the Bell patents are invalid be-
cause Bell was not the original and first in
Ventor or diseoverer of any substantial
part Of the thing patented. and that before
his alleged invention the same 1or
substantially the same) thing had been
invented by Drawbaugn. Also that Daniel
DraWbaugh was the original and first inventor
ana dlscoverer OF the art Of communicating ar
tlcuiate speech between distant places by voltaic
and magnetic electricity. The answer goes on to
say that long before the invention of Bell. GRAY,
and Edison, Drawbaugh constructed and oper-
ated practical working electricity speaking tele-
phones at Eberly's Mills, Cumberland county,
Pa, and exhibited their successful operation TO
many persons, that these telephones contained
all the material and substantial parts and inyen-
tlons patented by Bell, and that they were i'm
use from 1870 to 1874, and that at least one
hundred persons knew that Drawbaugh
Claimed TO be the original inventor. Draw
baugh,- however, it says, was for more than
ten years before 1880 miserably poor, in debt.
and with large and helpless family and was
from such causes utterly unable to patent his
Invention or caveat it, or manufacture or intro
duce 1t into the market; that he never aban-
doned it, but intended to patent it as soon as he
could procure the necessary pecuniary means
Alter testing his invention he conceived that its
| range and capacity for usefulness to the public
might be greatly enlarged, and he set to work
10 discover improvements. which he did, it is
alleged prior to the invention of Bell who has
incorporated them in his patents A wear ago
last January Drawbaugh made an application
for patent on his telephone, which was of
course rejected. Then began the law proceed
in@s to give Drawbaugh or the company repre-
senting him the right to sell telephones. and the
matter will be brought to a conclusion one way
or another within few months
Areporter of the Ecening Post talked TO-DAY
with several patent lawyers who are cOnversant
with the Bell-Drawbaugh suit. and admitted
that the cost of telephones to the public would
fall IS per cent. if Drawbaugh's claims were
allowed. Drawbaugh will produce one hundred
witnesses ready to swear that they used his tel
ephOne in 1870. Much of the evidence on the
other side will go to prove that Drawbaugh did
not make use of an unduatory current such as
Bell uses. but depended on the noise made by
rapid Interruptions of the current something
like the buzz of a Geographic traDsmitter key
worked very fast. Speech could be understood
through it, but with more OF less difficulty and
all voices We're alike. According to the patent
laws an invention which has been in use for two
years cannot be patented unless the inventor
can shOwthat between the time of the invention
and the application for patent he has been at
work on improvements All that Drawbaugh
asks is that Bell be restrained from interfering
with the production and sale of his telephones
As the construction of telephones cost but
trif1e compared with the prices now asked for
| them, the canceling of the Bell patents would
open the doors for many companies to begin
their manufacture.