Dolbear v. American Bell Telephone Company
Supreme Court of the United States
In Equity. The bills were filed in Circuit Courts of the United States by the American Bell Telephone Company and others, as owners of two patents, known as the Bell-telephone Patents, to enjoin the several defendants against infringements of those patents.
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In Equity. The bills were filed in Circuit Courts of the United States by the American Bell Telephone Company and others, as owners of two patents, known as the Bell-telephone Patents, to enjoin the several defendants against infringements of those patents. The two patents thus alleged to have come into the ownership of the complainants and to have been infringed were: 1. No. 174,465, dated March 7, 1876, granted‘to Alexander Graham Bell for new and useful improvements in telegraphy; and, 2. No. 186,787, dated January 30, 1877, granted to the same inventor for new and useful improvements in…
1Opinion of the CourtChief Justice Waite
The important question which meets us at the outset in each of these cases is as to the scope of the fifth claim of the patent of March 7, 1876, which is as follows :
“ 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 is contended that this embraces the art of transferring to or impressing upon a current of electricity the vibrations of air produced by the human voice in articulate…