February 27,
1901, declaring void the famous Berliner patent of the Bell telephone
system. [5]

[Footnote 5: See Federal Reporter, vol. 109, p. 976 et seq.]

Bell's patent of 1876 was of an all-embracing character, which only
the make-and-break principle, if practical, could have escaped. It was
pointed out in the patent that Bell discovered the great principle that
electrical undulations induced by the vibrations of a current produced
by sound-waves can be represented graphically by the same sinusoidal
curve that expresses the original sound vibrations themselves; or, in
other words, that a curve representing sound vibrations will correspond
precisely to a curve representing electric impulses produced or
generated by those identical sound vibrations--as, for example, when
the latter impinge upon a diaphragm acting as an armature of an
electromagnet, and which by movement to and fro sets up the electric
impulses by induction. To speak plainly, the electric impulses
correspond in form and character to the sound vibration which they
represent. This reduced to a patent "claim" governed the art as firmly
as a papal bull for centuries enabled Spain to hold the Western
world. The language of the claim is: "The method of and apparatus for
transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically as herein described,
by causing electrical undulations similar in form to the vibrations of
the air accompanying the said vocal or other sounds substantially as set
forth." It was a long time, however, before the inclusive nature of this
grant over every possible telephone was understood or recognized, and
litigation for and against the patent lasted during its entire life. At
the outset, the commercial value of the telephone was little appreciated
by the public, and Bell had the greatest difficulty in securing capital;
but among far-sighted inventors there was an immediate "rush to the gold
fields." Bell's first apparatus was poor, the results being described by
himself as "unsatisfactory and discouraging," which was almost as
true of the devices he exhibited at the Philadelphia Centennial. The
new-comers, like Edison, Berliner, Blake, Hughes, Gray, Dolbear, and
others, brought a wealth of ideas, a fund of mechanical ingenuity,
and an inventive ability which soon made the telephone one of the most
notable gains of the century, and one of the most valuable additions
to human resources. The work that Edison did was, as usual, marked by