Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/525

AMERICAN BKLL TELEPHONE CO. V. SPENCER. 511 �The defendants inaist that the instrument represented in figure 7 will not transmit articulate speech; that this great resuit has been reached by Mr> Bell entirely through the improvements described in. his second patent, such as the substitution of a metal plate for the stretched membrane, and some others. �The importance of the point is that if Bell, wh© is admitted in this case to be the original and first inventer of any mode of transmitting speech, had not completed his method, and put it into a working form when he took his first patent, he may lose the benefit of his inven- tion; because, in his second patent, he makes no broad claim to the method or process, but only to the improvements npon a process assumed to have been sufiiciently described in his first patent. There is some evidence: that Bell's experiments with the instrument, de- scribed in figure 7, before he took out his patent, were not entirely Buccessf ul ; but this is now immaterial, for it is proved that the in- strument will do the work, whether the inventer knew it or not, and in the mode pointed out by the specification. �The fifth claim of this patent is for — �"The method and apparatus for transmitting vocal or other sounda, tele- graphically, by causing electrical undulations similar in form to the vibra- tions of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sounds, substantlally as set forth." �The defendants use a method and apparatus for transmitting vocal Bounds vrhich resemble those of the plaintififs in producing electrical undulations copied from the vibrations of a diaphragm, and sending them along a wire to a similar receiver at the other end. The spe- cifie method of producing the electrical undulations is different. It is made on the principle of the microphone, which has been very much improved since the date of the first Bell patent. If the Bell patent were for a mere arrangement, or combination of old devices, to pro- duce a somewhat better resuit in a known art, then, no doubt, a per- son who substituted a new element not known at the date of the patent might escape the charge of infringement. But Bell discovered a new art, — that of transmitting speech by electricity, — and has a right to hold the broadest claim for it vyhich can be permitted in any case ; not to the abstract right of sending sounds by telegraph, with- out any regard to means, but to all means and processes which he has both invented and claimed. �The invention is nothing less than the transfer to a wire of elec- trical vibrations like those which a sound has produced in the air. The claim is not so broad as the invention. It was, uudoubtedly. ��� �