The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-04-07
ELECTRICITY IN LAW.
Points About Inventions That Have Open
ed New Fields of Litigation.

Points About Inventions That Have Open
ed New Fields of Litigation.
One of the effects of the rapid introduc-
ton of electrical inventions during the
last quarter of a century has been 10 open
up entirely new fields of litigation for the
lawyer and new questions for the bench.
This in general way is true of every new
creation of industrial property, but with
electricity many of the problems to be
solved are quite novel, and a judge has
often to go wide of practice or precedent
before he can determine the legal princi-
pie proper to apply in the case before him.
Thus, Tor instance, in Pennsylvania the
question has been adjudicated upon wheth-
er a local electric light company was a
manufacturing concern. The court says
it is not, and yet all that it does IS to make
current for sale.
A similar point is that raised as TO the
durability of electric current. The law
officers of the treasury say 1T Is intangible,
and therefore pays no duty; yet il can be
measured to the minutest fraction. The
Western Union company has had many a
fight as to whether pole lines had any right
on the public highway, and Massachusetts
say they have, as transporting message Is
part Of the work of intercourse, for which
roads are laid out and maintained.
The American Bell Telephone company
for years spent hundreds of thousands Of
dollars in defending the abstruse doctrine
that telephone speech can only be trans
United by an undulatory current, that
make and break current would not do it,
and that other devices are simply juggle
TO get around Bells patent. In electric
lighting millions of investments have hung
on '4flament," and on the exact meaning
that the courts might attach TO the word.
Among late legal fights is one that prob
ably the United States supreme court will
have to settle-namely, whether the tele-
phone companies or the electric railway
companies have night 20 use the earth as
return" circuit The telephone people
claim that the leakage from the railway
throws their service out Of gear and rem
ders the instruments useless The railway
people reply that their telephone friends
have q remedy in metallic circuits, and that
10 one electrical interest yhow can 'own
the earth" Already this dispute has crop
ped up n nearly a score Of states. and the
increasing number and magnitude OF the
electric roads renders il more and more
important. In the meantime, the tee
phone companies as far g. possible are
putting their metallic eircults II, with
marked improvement u the service
New questions thus crop up every day.
IN the Use, for example, OF the alternative
currents now becoming SO common not
little has depended On TIE patentabIHsy q
the principle Of Transforming The current,
and On whether a step Up" was equfyz-
lent 20 a step down"-iu other words,
whether raising the voltage and decreasing
tie ampercage was q simple ard iDsvlEatse
converse 70 decreasing the volts and rz.s-
ing the ampe-es- Another point around
which legal controversy has gathered IS tho
fine one as 10 where low" potential ends
and high" potential beg1ns--P!tzsaurs
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