Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1901-03-02
THE BELL Co1pANY WoRsrED.

pie Held to De BaseIess-A sweep
Ing Opinion.
Wednesday In the United States Cir
cult Court, at Boston, Judge Brown de-
cided that the Berliner patent of No
| vember, 1891, for the telephone trans
| mitter, owned by the American Bell
Telephone Company, is invalid for ev-
eral reasons. The court therefore or
dered the bills in equity which the
Bell company brought against the Ma
| tional Telephone Company and the
Century Telephone Company, asking
for an injunction restraining them
from using carbon transmitters, to be
dismissed, and that a decree be en-
tered in each case for the defendant.
| The complainant commended that the
use of carbon tranSmitterS infringed
the Berliner patent, which covered
substantially, under its contention, the
fundamental proposition of a trans
mitter Of speech, under the fundamen-
tai principle of creating electric waves
by varying pressure between bits OF
carbon already in contact.
The defendants argued that the Bell
company sought a monopoly OF the
telephone fer 80 years, from the first
Bell patent in 1876, when the monopoly
OF the telephone current ceased on the
expiration of the Bell patent OF March,
1875, in 1893; the Berliner patent In
suit began with 1891; that the greater
or Bell patent Of the current included
| the lesser or Berliner patent OF a bet
ter way Of producing the current.
The complainant contended that it
had, as the owner of the Berliner pat
ent OF 1891, the right to enforce it;
that the 1880 patent Of Berliner was
for the discovery that a telephone cur
rent flowing through a mfcrophone will
produce air-waves similar in form TO
the current; and mat the 1891 Ber-
liner patent, the one In suit, is for
the discovery that air-wayes acting on
a ~microphone will transform a current
flowing through that m~icrophone into
a current similar in form to the air
waves; and that these were separate
and distinct inventions, and that it
was wholly immaterial that these in
~ventions were described in each pat
emit, in view of the fact that the appli-
cations were pending at the same
time, being divisions Of one original
application.
The Bell company claimed that the
application for the 1880 patent con-
tains enough to make it clear that it
was intended to cover that telephone
receiver only, and not to cover the
transmitter, and to give distinct no.
tice that the transmitter was to be COW
cred by a subsequent patent.
The defendants argued that this
could not be; that Berliner was not
entitled to claim in one patent his re-
ceiver discovery and also his instru-
ment when used as a receiver, and IN
a later patent his transmitter discov-
cry and also the same instrument when
used as a transmitter. They also claim
that the 1891 Berliner patent was void,
for the reason that since the expira-
ton of the 1880 Berliner patent on
November 2, 1897, the public has had
the full right to use two Berliner in
struments together as a telephone sys-
tem-that is, that the public now has
the full right to a qualified use OF Ber-
liners transmitter discovery in deli
ance of the 1891 patent, and in spite
of the fact that the patent grants the
right to exclude the public from any
use of that transmitter discovery.
They said the whole question is this:
Has the public had full right to use
the system described in the 1880 pat
ent, and claimed in the fourth claim
of that patent, since the expiration OF
that patent in November, 1897? They
contended that the public has the
right. If the 1891 Berliner patent was
valid, it took away the right until No
vember II, 1908.
The court says:
II find the Berliner patent invalid,
because at the date of the application,
June 4, 1877, Berliner had not made the
invention covered by the patent issued
by the patent to the American Bell
Telephone Company on November II,
1891.
"Berliner's application says of the
instruments shown in the drawing of
the patent: These simple instruments
will reproduce any musical sound ut
tered in the neighborhood of one of
them; but for the reproduction OF
special sound, such as speech, they are
not adapted
"a clear statement of the reasons is
given, he statement is repeated; and
1t is said, also, of sound waves, moth
ing of the nature of each wave and the
shape of their curves is recorded
HE stated that he accomplished this
by apparatus operating to make and
break the circuit. His model and draw
ings, as we'll as the text of his APP
plication, show that he intended to
transmit speech Thy the
method of i~nterrupting the contact OF
electrodes and breaking the current.
This document stands in this case
as evidence on the question OF inven-
ton exactly as it was written. II is
conclusive evidence that Berliner had
not invented, and did not intend to ap-
ply for a patent for a constant-contact
speech transmiter.
The compliments attempt to show
that statements contained in this docu-
ment were inserted through the mis-
take of a solicitors clerk is a failure.
/ am convinced that this is not true.
81 find, as a matter of fact, that
Berliner did not. before June 4, 1877,
succeed in transmitting speech, but, on
the contrary, was convinced by his ex-
periments that speech could not be
transmitted by the apparatus of the
patent in suit.
Il find, also, that he did not, at that
date, intend to describe or claim the