The Portland daily press., 1894-01-11
EXPIRING TELEPHONE PATENT
But Little Chance of a Competitor to the
Great Monopoly.
Hartford Courant. |

Hartford CourantJ
The Bell Telephone patent, excepting
the Berlinger patent. expires on the
last day Of this month, and after that
date anyone can manufacture and use
what is ordinarily known as the hand
telephone. This at first thought would
Indicate important changes, and the
proba bilities of competing concerns
against the great monopoly and doubtless
something of this nature will occur,
but that any ser ious break in prices will
take place OF that any worthy competi-
tor of the American Bell Telephone Com
pany will spring up is very doubtful.
The patent which expires January 8 is
upon the hand telephone, or the ear
piece. This, it may have been forgotten
by some, was originally the only tele-
| phone in USE First it was used TO speak
into and then it was applied to the ear
and the hand went back and forth time
without number This instrument. at
| the time, was considered a wonderful in
vention, and up to 1879 or thereabouts
wasathe only one in use 1t was used
| for short distances with fair success, and
in some cases few persons dubbed to-
| gether and selected some neigh boring
store as a sort of central Office, but farther
than that the original Bell telephone
| never went.
About 1879 the Blake transmitter was
patented, and then it was the telephone
came into practical commercial value.
The patent on the transmitter still holds
SO that the Bell telephone is Of very
little value by itself 1t can still be
used for short distances, and when
the patent expires the end Of this month
concerns may spring up for the manu-
facture of similar Instruments and the
prices may be reduced. Dou btless many
private houses will then have telephone
connections with each other without the
transmitter, and large concerns will,
perhaps, put them in for use about
their factories, but their introduction
upon any large scale throughout the
country is very improbable. A tele-
phone that still can be only used for
short distances and must be used, if at
all, without the transmitter, will not be
in great demand.
The great improvement in the tele-
phone business has been in the invention
OF the long distance transmitter. 1t is
only within four or five years that there
has been any Interstate business. About
three years ago the American Telephone
and Telegraph Company perfected, after
considerable expense, the long distance
| transmltter now in use, and since then
great strides have been made in the
business and one can now talk with
Chicago as easily as with his next door
| neighbour. 1t may be mentioned incl
1 dentally, that the long distance company
4 does no local business and. the local COM
panies do no long distance business.
Each has its own field and does not in
trench upon the other. There are,
throughout the country, not less than
fifty local companies, of which New Eng
| land has three or four.
siaH The American Bell Telephone Com
pany owns majority of the stock of
most of these companies and it owns all
the patents the long distance transmit
ter included, so that the telephone bust
| ness, under whatever local name it may
be run, is practically under one head
and that a great monopoly. From the
very nature of the business it must be
monopoly. Should some rival company
start in here in Hartford and get hum
dred subscribers, those subscribers could
only talk with each otker. They would
be shut off from the great mass of south
ern New England subscribers unless,
4 perhaps they were induced to keep two
telephones, and that very few would be
inclined to do.
In Philadelphia the Daniel Draw baugh
Telephone people have organized con-
Germ to introduce their telephone in that
| city. and as an luducement they offer
to supply their telephones free till they
have secured 5000 subscribers. If the
Draw baugh company has the money and
the spirit to fight the Bell company
along these lines the contest may not be
confined to that city alone. Some such
| inducement as that must be offered
70 ~, opv hnadwpv onoidct tba MO
| noply.
| In Baltimore there is concern with
| 400 subscribers that proposes to start
an opposition company and doubtless in
some cher cities rivals will spring up.
The Bell company, whose policy it has
| been to buy up every patent thought to
be of any account whatever, owns about
five hundred patents; and if there are
others of any account which it does not
own, 1t is probably because the company
has not heard of them. The company,
as stated some time ago, had about 100,-
900 miles of wire under ground out of
about $4,000 miles all told; upwards of
100000 instruments under rentals and
about 250,000 stations. The capital stock
of the company is $40, 900. Last year
the company paid 10 per cent. dividend
In the United States Supreme court
cases, it may be added, it was claimed
that Daniel Drawb augh of Pennsylvania
had invented the telephone before Bell
did and mad put it into actual use, but
did not understand it's value until after
Bell had taken out his patent. Another
assertion was that Philip Refs of Ger
many had described aspeaking telephone
long before Bell began to experiment,
but that this telephone did not produce
an undulating current, but one in which
the current was broken at each vibra-
ton of the diaphragm; that 1t was posi-
BILE to talk through the Refs telephone,
but the speech was broken, and the ma
chine too coarse and unsensitive to yield
good results. What the result will be
| remains to be seen.