ENRY-1
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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. I am not
qualified to say whether Marconi was a genius. Certainly the great eminence
of Clerk Maxwell and Sir Oliver Lodge and Nikola Tesla [320 U.S. 1, 63] in
the field in which Marconi was working is not questioned. They were, I
suppose, men of genius. The fact is that they did not have the 'flash' (a
current term in patent opinions happily not used in this decision) that
begot the idea in Marconi which he gave to the world through the invention
embodying the idea. But it is now held that in the important advance upon
his basic patent Marconi did nothing that had not already been seen and
disclosed.
Tesla's specifications state that the current should preferably be 'of very
considerable frequency'. In describing apparatus used experimentally by him,
the specifications state that the oscillations are generated in the charging
circuit by the periodic discharge of a condenser by means of 'a mechanically
operated break', a means whose effects are similar to those of the spark gap
generally used at this period in the radio art. He further states that the
inductance of the charging circuit is so calculated that the 'primary
circuit vibrates generally according to adjustment, from two hundred and
thirty thousand to two hundred and fifty thousand times per second'. The
range of radio frequencies in use in 1917 was said by a witness for the
plaintiff to extend from 30,000 to 1,500,000 cycles per second. The range of
frequencies allocated for radio use by the International Telecommunication
Convention, proclaimed June 27, 1934, 49 Stat. 2391, 2459, is from 10 to
60,000 kilocycles (10,000 to 60,000,000 cycles) per second, and the spectrum
of waves over which the Federal Communications Commission currently
exercises jurisdiction extends from 10 to 500,000 kilocycles. Code of
Federal Regulations, Title 47, Ch. I, 2. 71. Thus Tesla's apparatus was
intended to operate at radio frequencies.
Tesla in fact did not use Hertzian waves. His idea was to make the ether a
conductor for long distan es by using extremely high voltage, 20, 000,000 to
30,000,000 volts, and extremely high altitudes, 30,000 to 40, 000 feet or
more, to secure transmission from aerial to aerial. Balloons, with wires
attached reaching to the ground, were his suggested aerials. His system was
really one for transmitting power for motors, lighting, etc ., to 'any
terrestrial distance,' though he incidentally mentions 'intelligible
messages.' As he did not use Hertzian waves, he had no such problem of
selectivity as Marconi, Lodge, Stone and others were working on later.
Nikola Tesla - U.S. Patent 645,576, March 20, 1900 - System Of Transmission
Of Electrical Energy
Nikola Tesla - U.S. Patent 649,621, May 15, 1900 - Apparatus For
Transmission Of Electrical Energy