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Show BELL'S TELEPHONE PATENTS. Instruments Invented to Transmit Speech Long- Before Bell .Secured .Se-cured monopoly Rights. Washington, November 9. The first telephone tele-phone case called before Secretary Lamar to-day t was that, of the' Globe Telephone Company. In brief, the petitions set forth that the patent examiner who passed Bell's patent was under the impression that it re- I lated to a system of multiplex telesrabh: that Bell's original telephone was inoperative; inopera-tive; that this was admitted by himself; that he could hot truthfully claim the priority pri-ority of The invention of the telephone, Because it was known that Beiss, Meucci, Gray and others -had made and used telephones tele-phones before Bell's application; that it could.be shown that Meucci had used the telephone in 1859 and that he had not abandoned aban-doned his invention ; that the Western Union Telegraph Company, controlling certain cer-tain telephone patents, had entered into a contract with the Bell company to compromise compro-mise their differences, by which the Western Union company received twenty per cent of the profits of the telephone company, and that these great corporations had united to compel people to pay tribute to them. Therefore There-fore the Globe Telephone Company prayed the Department of Justice to begin a suit to vaoate the Bell patent. A. K. Eaton, an electrical expert and inventor in-ventor of Brooklyn, testifying for the Cush-man Cush-man company, in his affidavit deposes that the Beiss apparatus is capable of tbansmitting speech. He also described Meuoci's invention, and stated that in his opinion Beiss was the inventor in-ventor of the telephone. S. 3. Pratt, of the editorial staff of the New York World, in his affidavit, corroborates corrobo-rates the statements of Mr. Eaton, and declares de-clares that Eaton, to his knowledge, in 1875 created an operative speaking telephone. Professor Amos E. Dolbear, of Tufft's College, Massachusetts, makes an affidavit that he was told by Bell, in the fall of 1876, that he (Bell) had a magneto-telephone two or three years before and that it did not amount to anything. This statement had discouraged affiant and he did not carry out his intention of applying for a patent for his own invention. Affiant's instruments had, through the Gold and Stock Company jCome under the control of the Western Union Telegraph Company, and affiant was not represented at the interference proceedings before the Patent Office, because of the fact that the Bell Company controlled his inventions. inven-tions. Attached to Professor Dolbear's affidavit affi-davit are a number of exhibits in the shape of letters from a number of college prof es-sors, es-sors, testifying to the merits and practicability practica-bility of the Beiss invention. Mr. Beokwith, representing the Globe Company, read an affidavit of Antonis Meucci, describing his inventions, and exhibits ex-hibits were laid before the Secretary to support sup-port his allegation. Meucci recounts his stbuggles against extbeme povebty. Which he says prevented him from taking out a patent for a telephone conceived by him in 1845 while in Havana, and for which he made a caveat in 1871. A long transcription transcrip-tion from his notes of experiments in telephony, tele-phony, antedating the Bell patent, was read, and a number of corroborative affidavits were submitted, closing the case for the Globe and Washington companies, and the further hearing was adjourned until to-morrow. |