National Republican., 1888-03-20
THE BELL PHONE WINS.
8.y0RABLE DECISION PROM THE UNITED
STATES SUPREME COURT. .
. he Inventor Discovered the Art Of
Transmitting Speech-Ho Was Enti-
tied to the Patent Obtained-Thrce
Judges Dissent from the Opinion.


lith people, among the number being many
ttorneys and hundreds were turned from
nc doors unable to secure admission.
Nmong those persons noticed within the
ar were the commissioner of patents, Mr..
alexander NJ. Bell, Mr. StoTow, of the
aounsel for the Bell Telephone Company,
nd many patent attorneys. II was pre-
isely 12 o'clock when the judges entered
he chamber and took their seats upon the
ench, and five minutes later Mr. Justice
ilatchford began to read the opinion. 1t
ad been prepared by the Chief Justice,
ut, owing to q slight indisposition, he did
OF feel able to read it, and, therefore, re.
uested Mr.. Justice Blntchford 10 read IL
Or him. The cases covered by the decision
Z the court are six In number, one of them
otning from Massachusetts,, one from Penn
ylvahia, and four from New York. In the
lrst five cases the appellants are Amos +.
)olbcar ct al, the Molecular Telephone
'ompany, the Clay Commercial Telephone
'Cmpany, the Peoples Telephone Com
ANY, and the Overland Telephone Com
,any. In the sixth the Bell Telephone
'clnpany is the appellant against the Mole
ulGr Telephone Company.
The opinion began with review of the
'lausc of Bells patent Of March Z, 1876,
hat is, whether the patent was for an art Or
process of transmitting articulate speech or
merely for an apparatus by which that OBJ
ect could be attained. The court is Of
opinion upon this point that articulate
'peech is one of the ''vocal or other sounds
efcrrod to IN the fifth claim of the patent;
Bell discovered that speech could be trans
niited by gradually changing the intensity
# continuous electric current so as to
make II correspond exactly to the changes
II the density of the air caused by the sound
# the voice. This was his art. lie then
leviscd way In which these changes Of in
ensity could be made and speech actually
transmitted. Thus his art was put in a
10Th discovery and invention, In the
popular sense of those terms, were involved
discovery in finding the art, and invention
II devising the means of making 1t useful
Eor such discoveries and such inventions
he law had given the discoverer and the
inventor the right to patent-as discoverer
or the useful art, process, method of doing
thing he has found, and MS inventor for the
means he has devised to make his discovery
me of actual value.
What Bell claims is the art of creating
hanges of intensity in Il continuous current
II electricity exactly corresponding to the
'hanges of density In the air caused by the
ibrations accompanying vocal or other
-ounds and of using that electrical cond-
ion thus created for sending and receiving
.rticulate speech Geographically. For that,
mong other things, his patent of 1873 was
ssued, and as such patent 1t must, In the
opinion Of the court, be sustained. 1t is said
hat the claim, Il given this broad construc-
ion, is virtually q claim for spGcN trans |
mission by transmitting it-or, other
words, FOR all such doing Of a thig us is
orovable by doing it.
1t is true that Bell transmits s',ecb by
transmitting 1t, and that long befce he did
10 It was believed by scientists.iat 1t could
DC done by means of electriCty If the cleo
NfP' etl6ct could be prduced. Precisely
: subtitle force ehayes under Bells
:: " or what fQm it takes no one can
h we knows that he found out that
Ety intensity of continuous
Ito make 1t correspond exactly
l.dnge in the density of the air
- by sonorous vibrations, vocal and
Ia distance. This was the thing TO be
e and Bell discovered the way of doing it
+, was the first discoverer, and with his
~ he astonished the scientific world.
- ,nry, one of the most eminent
~ OF the present century, spoke of it
@", eatest marvel hitherto achieved
Sy tGo Niegraph.n A patent for such a
means which the discoverer improvised to
prove the reality of his conception. The
court is therefore of opinion that the patent
must be sustained as patent for a process
o. art.
{ The Chief Justice then considered the al
eyed anticipation of Bells discovery by
Philip Refs. Refs, the Chief Justice. said,
nut he did no more. lie could sing through
Us apparatus, but he could not talk, and
i'om the beginning to the end he has con-
celed this. No one of the many writers,
Whose papers are found in the record, claim
More than this for Refs and his discoveries,
After revicwingth history of Reis's inven-
xon, the Chief Justice said: 1t is needless
kquote further from the evidence ON this
Btnch of the case. 1t Is not contended
et Refs ever succeeded In actually trans
ting speech, but only that his instrument
a-sG SeSae Of 1t II he had only known how,
tDt know how, and all his expert
that direction were failures 1t
lr Bell to discover that these fail
due not to bad workmanship In
Instruments, but to the principle
9as adopted as the basis OF what had
"A found that what he called the inter
.ltent current could not be made under
any circumstances to reproduce the delicate
forms of the air vibrations caused by the
human voice in articuate speech, but that the
rue way was to operate on an unbrokcn cur
rent by increasing and diminishing Its inten-
ity. This he called vibratory or undula-
ory current, not because the current was
supposed to actually take that form, but
because II expressed with sufficient accuracy
his idea of current which was subjected
to gradual changes of intensity exactly ana
iogOus to the changes Of density in the air
pccasioncd by its vibrations. Such was his
discovery, and it was new. Refs never
thought of 1t, and he failed to transmit
speech geographically. Bell did, and he sue
cheded. Under such circumstances 1t is i'm
pyssible to hold that what Refs did was an
anticipation of the discovery Of Bell.
After reviewing briefly the claims of DR..
Van der Weyde, James w. McDonough, and
Cromwell f, Varley, and showing that
those claims have no bearing upon the
validity of Bells patents, the Chief Justice
Pennsylvania, and reviewed 1t at great
length. He said the court had studied with
care the dispositions which had been taken
in such large numbers, to show that Draw
baugh succeeded In using the instruments
which We're put in evidence as exhibits and
which antedated the instruments of Bell and
If these depostiOns contained all the tcstl-
mony IN the case ii would be more difficult
to reach the conclusion that Drawbaugh's
claim was not sustained, In the courts
opinion their effect has been completely
overcome by the corAuct of Drawbaugh,
about which there is no dispute from the
time of his visit to the Centennial until he
was put forward by the promoters of the
Peoples Telephone Company nearly four
years aftcrward TO contest the claims Of
Bell.
He was silent, so far as the general public
We're concerned, when If he had really done
what these witnesses think he did he would
most certainly have spoken. There Is hardly a
single act Of his connected with his present
claim from the time he heard before going
vented telephone which was on exhibition
at the Centennial that is not entirely incon-
sistent with the idea even then of complete