The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-03-20

iluAOy VI 4ul Dell patents, buh OuleL JUS
tlce took up the case of Daniel Drawbaugh,
of Pennsylvania and reviewed it at great
length. he said the court had studied with
care the depositions which had been taken
in such large numbers TO show that Mr..
Drawbaugh succeeded in using instruments
which were put in evidence as exhibits and
which antedated the instruments of Mr..
Bell, and If these depositions contained all
the testimony in the case it would be more
difficult to reach the conclusion that Mr..
Drawbaugh'S claim was not sustained. In
the courts opinion their effect has been
completely overcome by the conduct of Mr..
Drawbaugh, about which there is no dis
pIte. 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 afterward, to contest the
claims of Mr. Bell, he was silent SO far as
the general public were concerned, when if
he had really done what these witnesses
now think he did, he would most certainly
have spoken.
ENTIRELY INCONSISTENT.
There is hardly single act of his con-
nected with his present claim from
the time he heard before going
to Philadelphia that some one else had in
vented telephone which was on exhibition
at the centennial that is not entirely incon-
sistent with the idea of then complete dis
covery of the invention by himself which
! could be put to any practical use. 1t
is not pretended that what he
! did was done In private. He
had influential friends with ample pecu-
mary resources ready to help him in bring
ing out his inventions when they promised
success. The news of Mr.. Bells invention
| spread rapidly and at once, and it took but
| few months to demonstrate to the
| world that he had achieved
a brilliant success. If it we're
known at Eberly's mills alone
that Mr.. Drawbaugh had been doing the
same thing for years in his shop there, and
it certainly would have been known all
| through the little village if it had actually
been done, no one can believe that the public
would have been kept in ignorance of it until
| four years afterwards when a special from
| Washington to the Cincinnati Commercial
announced the telephone combination to
have entire charge of telephones, not only
In this country, but in the world, that
could transmit messages for almost a song.
To our minds the result of the expert
ments made with Mr.. Drawbaugh's instru-
ments conclusively showed that they could
| not have done what the witnesses
supposed they did, and that what
| they saw and heard was produced
| by some other means than an electric
| speaking telephone. We do not doubt that
idea that speech could be transmitted to a
| distance by means of electricity, and that
! he was experimenting upon that subject. But
| to hold that he had discovered the art of
doing it before Mr.. Bell did would be to
construe testimony without regard to the
ordinary law governing human conduct.
| Without pursuing the subject further we
decide that Mr.. rawbaugh's defense has
, not been made out
THE CHARGES OF FRAUD.
The Chief Justice then took up the allega-
tions of collusion and fraud made in the
charge that Mr.. Bells application as origi-
nally filed in the Patent Office did not con
| tain his present fourth claim, or any de-
scription of his variable resistance method,
and that all which now appears in the Speci-
fication on that subject, including the
| fourth claim, was sureptitiously interpo-
lated afterward. So grave a charge made
| in SO formal a manner is entitled, the Chief
! Justice says, to careful consideration. 1t
involves the professional integrity and
| moral character of, eminent at
| torneyS and requires us to
find from the evidence that after Mr. Bell
swore to this application on Feb. 90, 1876,
and after the application thus sworn to had
| been formally filed in the Patent Office, an
examiner who got knowledge of the Gray
| caveat, put in afterward, disclosed its con-
tents to Mr.. Bells attorneys; that they were
| then allowed to withdrew the application
change it so as to include Mr.. Gray's vari-
| able resistance methods over Mr. Bells sig
| nature and over the jurat, and then to re-
turn it to the files, thus materially altered,
as if it were the original, and all this be-
tween Feb. IA and Feb 10, although much
stress was laid in the argument on the fact
that what purporUed to bea certified copy of
the specification of Mr.. Bell as found
in a file-wrapper and entries, and as
printed in the Dowd case, differed materi-
ally from the patent. The cause of those
differences has been explained in a most
satisfactory manner, and we entertain no
doubt whatever that the specification
now found in the patent is pre-
cisely the same as that on
which the order to issue the patent was
made If any alterations were made it was
all done before Feb. 10, and the fair copy
which is now on the files of the office is pre-
cisely as it was when the order for the
patent was granted. No shadow of suspic-
ion can rest on any one growing out of the
misprint of specification in the Dowd case.
THE MAGNET ONLY A PART.
The Chief Justice then reviewed briefly
the case of the Bell Telephone Company
against the Molecular Telephone Company,
| which involves one of the claims of the
patent issued to Mr.. Bell Jan. so, 1877. The
| court below held that the fifth claim of this
| patent was anticipated by the Scheller
| magnet. Mr.. Bells patent the court holds,
was not for magnet, but for telephone,
of which it formed only a part. To that
extent the decree in that case was errone-
Gus.
1t follows that the decree in each of the
cases, so far as it is in favor of the Bell
| company and those claiming under it, must
! be affirmed, and the decree in the Mole
cular case, so far as il is against that COM
panv on the full claim Of the patent of Jan
! so, 1877, must be reversed and a decree d-
rected to that extent in its favor. 1t is ac-
cordingly SO ordered.
| DISSENTING OPINIONS.
Justice Brady read an opinion dissenting
| from the decision of the court. Justices
| Field and Harlan also dissent, and Justices
Gray and Lamar did not sit in the case.
| The Bell patents are therefore sustained by a
majority of one, the court standing to3.
The dissent of Justices Bradley, Field
and Harlan is based upon the Drawbaugh
claim. These three Justices are of the
opinion that the evidence Overwhelmingly
| shows that Mr.. Drawbaugh was the first IN
ventor Of the speaking telephone, although
he was unconscious of it ard was not aware
| of its Importance.
International Copyright.