The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1888-03-21
BELLS PATENT WINS
rawbaugh's Claim Backed BY the Min
oTity of the COurt-The Points at
Issue and Decided-Other Cases
Settled by the Court.


crowded to-day when court assembled at
noon, and large number of persons were
tuIned away from the doors. Alexander
Melville Bel and Mr.. Storrow, of counsel
for the Bell company, were present, as
were also the commissioner of patents
several patent attorneys and large num-
Der of persons directly or indirectly inter-
ested in the telephone stocks. At 1905,
Mr.. Justice Blatchford, acting for Chief
Justice Waite, began reading the opinion
in the telephone cases. The opinion was
prepared by the chief.justice, but owing to
ndisposition, he did not feel able to read
It and requested Mr.. Justice Blatchford to
do so for him. The cases covered by the
decision of the court are six in number,
one of them coming from Massachusetts,
one from Pennsylvania and four from
New York. In the first five cases the ap-
pellants are Amos F. Dolbear ct al, the
Molecular telephone company, the Clay
Commercial telephone company, the Peo.
pies telephone company and the Overland
telephone company. In the sixth the
Bell telephone company Is the appellant
against the Molecular telephone company.
The chief ustice began his opinion with
q review OF the question raised as to the
scope of the fifth clause of Bells patent of
March Z, 1876, that is whether the patent
was for an art or process Of transmitting
articulated speech, or merely for an appa-
ratus by which that object could be at
tanned. The court is of opinion, upon this
point, that articulate speech is one of the
vocal or other sounds referred to in the
fifth claim of the patent. Bell discovered
that speech could be transmitted by grad
uslly changing the intensity of a continu-
ous electric current so as to make IL CORE
spond exactly to the changes in the density
OF the air caused by the sound of the voice.
This was bis art. He then devised a way In
which these changes of intensity could be
made in speech actually transmitted.
Thus, his art was put in a condition for
practical use. In doing this, both discovery
and invention in the popular sense of those
terms, were involved-discovery, in finding
the art and invention in devising the
means of making it useful. For such dis.
coveries and such inventions the law mad
given the discoverer and the inventor the
right to patent-es discoverer, for the use
ful art process, method of doing q thing
he has found; and as inventor, for the
means he has devised to make his discovery
one Of actual value.
Bell was the first discoverer of the pro-
cess Of transmitting articulate speech by
changing the intensity of q continuous
current so as to make it correspond with
changes in the density of the air produced
by the voice; and with this he astonished
the scientific world. Prof. Henry, one of
the most eminent scientists of the present
century, spoke of it as ''the greatest mar
vel hitherto achieved by the telegraph"
A patent for such discovery is not to be
confined to the mere means which the
discoverer improvised to prove the reality
OF his conception. The court is therefore
OF the opinion that the patent must be
sustained as patent for process or art.
The chief Justice then considered the al
legged anticipation Of Bells discovery by
Phillip Refs, and said that Refs never sue
ceeded in actually transmitting speech
and that it is therefore impossible to hold
that what he did was an anticipation OF
the discovery Of Bell. After reviewing
briefly the claims of Dr.. Wander Weyde,
James W, McDonough and Cromwell f.
Varley, and showing that these claims
have no bearing upon the validity of
Bells patents, the chief Justice took up
the case of Daniel Drawbaugh of PennsyI-
Vania, and reviewed it at great length.
In the courts opinion, the effect of the
depositions taken to show that Drawbaugh
succeeded in using instruments which an
tedated those of Bell, has been completely
overcome by the conduct of Dravbaugh,
about which there is no dispute, from the
time OF his visit to the Philadelphia Gen.
tennial until he was put forward by the
promoters of the Peoples telephone COM
pany, nearly four years atterward, to con-
test the claims of Bell. he was silent so
ar as the general public were concerned.
when, IL he had really done what these
witnesses now think he did, he would most
certainly have spoken. There is hardly a
single act OF his in connection with mis-
present claim, from the time he heard be-
NV 70 IL -. -
else had invented a telephone which was
on exhibition at the centennial, that is not
entirely inconsistent with the idea even
then OF complete discovery or invention
by himself, which could be put to any
practical value. The news of Bells inven-
tions spread rapidly and at once, and it
took but few months to demonstrate to
the world that he had achieved a bril-
liant success. If it were known at Eberly's
Mills alone that Drawbaugh had been doing
the same thing for years in his shop there
and ii certainly would have been known all
through the little village if it lad actually
been done-no one can believe that the
public would be kept in ignorance OF it un-
III four years afterward, when special from
Washington to the Cincinnati C0Blnlercial,
announced q telephone combination Ito
have entire charge of the telephone not
only in this country but in the world''
that could transmit messages "for almost q
song"
To our mind, the result of the expert
ments made with Drawbaugh instruments
eonclusively showed that they could not
have done what the witnesses supposed
they did, and that what they saw and
heard was pr0duced by some other means
than an electrical speaking telephone. We
decide that Drawbaugh's defense has not
been made out.
The chief justice then took up the charge
of fraud and collusion in the patent Office
By means of which Bell, ii is alleged, OBJ
tanned surreptitious information with
regard TO the inventions Of his rivals aud
then amended his own speci6catious. Up
on this point the court says: I'VE entertain
no doubt whatever that the specif cation as
now found in the patent, is precisely the
same on which the order to issue the patent
was made, and the fair copy which is now
found on the files of the Office is precisely
ss il was when the order for the patent
was granted. Not q shadow of suspicion
can rest on any one growing out OF the
misprint of the specification in the Dowd
case"
Thelchief justice then reviewed briefly the
case of the Bell telephone company against
the MOLECULAR telephone company, which
involves one of the claims Vf the patent