Harlan F. Stone

“ The discoveries of science are the discoveries of the laws of nature, and like nature do not go by leaps. Even Newton and Einstein, Harvey and Darwin, built on the past and on their predecessors. Seldom indeed has a great discoverer or inventor wandered lonely as a cloud. Great inventions have always been parts of an evolution, the culmination at a particular moment of an antecedent process. ”

“ Stone's application emphasized the desirability of tuning, and disclosed means of adjusting the tuning of the closed circuits. His very explicit recognition of the increased selectivity attained by inductive coupling of several resonant circuits plainly suggested to those skilled in the art that the antenna circuit could with advantage be a resonant circuit, that is to say a tuned circuit, and hence that it was one of the circuits to be tuned. He stressed the importance of tuning 'by any suitable device' the 'apparatus' at transmitter and receiver, which included at both an antenna circuit. ”

“ In one article, of June 8, 1894, he discussed phenomena of resonance and made an observation which underlies several of the disclosures in Marconi's patent. Lodge pointed out that some circuits were by their nature persistent vibrators, i.e., were able to sustain for a long period oscillations set up in them, while others were so constructed that their oscillations were rapidly damped. He said that a receiver so constructed as to be rapidly damped would respond to waves of almost any frequency, while one that was a persistent vibrator would respond only to waves of its own natural periodicity. ”

“ It was then well known in the art that every electrical circuit is to some degree resonant to a particular frequency to which it responds more readily and powerfully than to others. Although the degree of resonance attained by a vertical wire is small, its natural resonance is no different in kind from that of a closed circuit such as Stone's screening circuit. ”

“ On the other hand, for distant detection, the waves must be of substantial amplitude, and only a circuit which loses its energy rapidly can transmit such waves with maximum efficiency. Obviously in a single circuit the two desired effects tend to cancel each other, and therefore to limit the distance of detection. Similar difficulty characterized the receiver, for a good radiator is a good absorber and that very quality disables it to store up and hold the effect of a train of waves, until enough is accumulated to break down the coherer, as detection requires. ”

“ The circuits are so constructed that the electrical impulses in the antenna circuit of the transmitter vibrate longer with the application to the transmitter of a given amount of electrical energy than had been the case in the previous structures known to the art, and the selectively and sensitivity of the receiver is likewise enhanced. Thus increased efficiency in the transmission and reception of signals is obtained. ”

“ The inescapable fact is that Marconi in his basic patent hit upon something that had eluded the best brains of the time working on the problem of wireless communication-Clerk Maxwell and Sir Oliver Lodge and Nikola Tesla. Genius is a word that ought to be reserved for the rarest of gifts. ”

“ That reputation, however well-deserved, does not entitle him to a patent for every later improvement which he claims in the radio field. Patent cases, like others, must be decided not by weighing the reputations of the litigations, but by careful study of the merits of their respective contentions and proofs. As the result of such a study we are forced to conclude, without undertaking to determine whether Stone's patent involved invention, that the Court of Claims was right in deciding that Stone anticipated Marconi, and that Marconi's patent did not disclose invention over Stone. ”

“ We need not consider whether one who has taken an assignment of a patent after its issuance would have any greater rights than his assignor in the event of the latter's undue delay in filing a disclaimer. ”

“ The receiver has an open antenna circuit which is electrically responsive to the transmitted waves and is capable of using those responses to actuate by means of a relay or amplifier any convenient form of signalling apparatus for making audible an electrically transmitted signal, such as a telegraph sounder or a loud speaker. In brief, signals at the transmitter are utilized to control high frequency electrical oscillations which are radiated by an antenna through the ether to the distant receiver and there produce an audible or visible signal. ”

“ The Government contends that the arrangement of the antenna circuit disclosed by Marconi's specifications-with the condenser shunted around the transformer coil but not around the variable inductance-is such that the condenser cannot increase the wave-length over what it would be without such a condenser, and that it can decrease that wave-length only when adjusted to have a very small capacity. The Government contends therefore that its principal function is not that of tuning but of providing 'loose coupling'. ”

“ The shunt-circuit extends from the place through a galvanometer to the filament. His specifications disclose that the vacuous space within the globe is a conductor of current between the plate anode and the filament; that the strength of the current in the filament-to-plate circuit through the vacuum depends upon the degree of incandescence at the filament; and that the plate anode is preferably connected to the positive side of the current supply. The claims of the patent are for the combination of the filament, plate and interconnecting circuit, including the galvanometer. ”

“ The purpose of the rule that a patent is invalid in its entirety if any part of it be invalid is the protection of the public from the threat of an invalid patent, and the purpose of the disclaimer statute is to enable the patentee to relieve himself from the consequences of making an invalid claim if he is able to show both that the invalid claim was inadvertent and that the disclaimer was made without unreasonable neglect or delay. ”

“ There is nothing whatever to suggest including a tuning device also in the open circuit. The statement concerning the use of 'any suitable device' to 'develop the simple harmonic force impressed upon the vertical wire' might be taken, in other context, possibly to suggest magnifying the impressed force by inserting a device for that purpose in the open circuit and therefore to come more closely than the other passages to suggesting Marconi's idea. ”

“ Moreover, and for present purposes this is the important thing, Marconi brought the closed and open circuits into almost complete harmony by placing variable inductance in each. Through this the periodicity of the open circuit was adjusted automatically to that of the closed one; and, since the circuits of the receiving station were similarly adjustable, the maximum resonance was secured throughout the system. Marconi thus not only solved the dilemma of a single circuit arrangement; he attained the maximum of resonance and selectivity by providing in each circuit independent means of tuning. ”

“ Fleming's drawings and specifications show a combination apparatus by which alternating current impulses received through an antenna circuit containing the primary of a transformer are induced in the secondary of the transformer. To one end of the secondary coil is connected a carbon filament like that of an incandescent electric lamp, which is heated by a battery. Surrounding, but not touching the filament, is a cylinder of aluminum open at the top and bottom, which is connected with the other end of the secondary. ”

“ The variable inductance imparted no new function to the circuit; and merely making a known element of a known combination adjustable by a means of adjustment known to the art, when no new or unexpected result is obtained is not invention. ”

“ Stone points out that in the existing systems of radio transmission the electric oscillations are 'naturally' developed in the antenna circuit by the sudden discharge of accumulated electrical force through a spark gap in that circuit. Such oscillations are 'necessarily of a complex character and consist of a great variety of superimpose simple harmonic vibrations of different frequencies'. ”

“ When Stone states that 'the vertical conductor at the transmitter station is made the source of * * * waves of but a single periodicity,' I find nothing to suggest that this is accomplished by specially tuning that circuit, or, in fact anything more than that this circuit is a good conductor sending out the single period waves forced into it from the closed circuit. ”

“ Hertzian waves are electrical oscillations which travel with the speed of light and have varying wave lengths and consequent frequencies intermediate between the frequency ranges of light and sound waves. The transmitting apparatus used for sending the signals is capable, when actuated by a telegraph key or other signalling device, of producing, for short periods of variable lengths, electrical oscillations of radio frequency (over 10,000 cycles per second) in an antenna or open circuit from which the oscillations are radiated to a distant receiving apparatus. ”

“ In addition to its ability to originate 'natural vibrations' when its electrical equilibrium is disturbed, Stone says that an electrical circuit is also 'capable of supporting what are termed forced vibrations' when electrical oscillations elsewhere created are impressed upon it. ”

“ The real question is how significant a jump is the new disclosure from the old knowledge. Reconstruction by hindsight, making obvious something that was not at all obvious to superior minds until someone pointed it out,-this is too often a tempting exercise for astute minds. ”

“ Current then rushes through the transformer-circuit and the condenser e is charged and subsequently discharges through the spark-gap. If the capacity, the inductance, and the resistance of the circuit are of suitable values, the discharge is oscillatory, with the result that alternating currents of high frequency pass through the primary of the transformer and induce similar oscillations in the secondary, these oscillations being rapidly radiated in the form of electric waves by the elevated conductor (antenna) . ”

“ Marconi's original patent showed a two-circuit system, in which the high frequency oscillations originated in the transmitter antenna circuit and the detecting device was connected directly in the receiver antenna circuit. Between 1896 and 1900 he demonstrated on numerous occasions the practical success of his apparatus, attaining successful transmission at distances of 70 and 80 miles. During those years he applied for a large number of patents in this and other countries for improvements on his system of radio communication. ”

“ Although any conductor of electricity has capacity to some degree, that property is substantially enhanced in a circuit by the use of a condenser, consisting of two or more metal plates separated by a non-conductor, such that when a voltage is applied to the circuit one plate will become positively and the other negatively charged.↑ A coherer was a device disclosed by Branly as early as 1891. ”

“ Amendment under such circumstances, particularly with respect to a matter which goes to the root rather than an incident or a detail of the invention, is always to be regarded critically and, when the foundation claimed for it is implicit existence in the original application, as it must be, the clearest and most convincing evidence should be required when the effect is to give priority, by backward relation, over another application intermediately filed. ”

“ But consciousness of their limitations should make them vigilant against importing their own notions of the nature of the creative process into Congressional legislation, whereby Congress 'to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts' has secured 'for limited Times to * * * Inventors the exclusive Right to their * * * Discoveries.' Above all, judges must avoid the subtle temptation of taking scientific phenomena out of their contemporaneous setting and reading them with a retrospective eye. ”

“ When to altitude of the plane of conception and results so immediate and useful is added well-nigh unanimo § contemporary judgment, one who long after-ward would overturn the invention assumes a double burden. ”

“ Specifically petitioner urges that Telsa had nothing to do with either Hertzian waves or tuning, but in fact his transmitting and receiving wires could not be tuned. [36] Lodge, it claims, disclosed a tuned antenna, for either transmitter or receiver or both, but the closed circuits associated with the antenna ones were not tuned. Finally it is said Stone does not describe tuning the antenna, but does show tuning of the associated closed circuit. And Marconi tuned both.
Petitioner does not claim the general principles of tuning. ”

“ Claims 1 and 37 of the Fleming patent are identical in their structural elements. Both claim the vacuum tube, and the two electrodes connected by a circuit outside the tube, one element being heated. The claims differ only in that Claim 37 includes 'means for detecting' the continuous or direct current in the anode-cathode circuit, and 'means for impressing upon the circuit the received oscillations' from the transformer coil of the antenna circuit. ”