WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 22, 27 January 1911, Page 7

WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY.

ROMANCE OF MARCONI PATENTS. CHANCERY LITIGATION. (From Our Own Correspondent.) j LONDON, 16th December. Chancery Court No. IV. has been transformed temporarily into a wireless station, a novelty which is without precedent in legal history, and for many days to come the court will prove a groat attraction to people interested in wireless telegraphy. An action has been brought by the Marconi Company against the British Radio Telegraph and Telephone Company for the alleged infringement of three patents, dated respectively 1900, 1902, and 1907. A large number of expert- witnesses will be called on each side. The apparatus has been arranged on a platform in the court, and a wire which passes through one oi the windows connects it with an aerial wire fixed to the clock tower. It is stated that messages will be- received from abroad, and also from ships in the Channel. Thn whole of Monday, the opening day, was occupied by Mr. Astbury, K.C., who is appearing for the Marconi Company. Mr. Marconi was present in court. Giving a skeleton of the secret history of wireless telegraphy, Mr. Astbury said in 1896 Mr. Marconi took out the first patent ever granted, in connection with wireless telegraphy. Previously, at his home in Itaiy he had got messages across in a very Email space. In 1836 he conducted a series of trials on Salisbury Plain, and a distance of 1J miles was obtained. In 1897, at the same place, he covered a distance of four miles, which he increased to eight miles in the same year. At the end of that year, the first Marconi station in this country was erected, and messages were exchanged between it and the resiaenuii of Mr. Mar coni, fourteen or fifteen miles away. In 1898 there was an installation between Osborne and the Royal yacht, which enabled Queen Victoria to bo in constant communication with the Prince of Wales. A COMMERCIAL SUCCESS. The system had become a practical commercial success although covering only shore distances. In 1899 the distance had largely increased, and the Marconi system wrs fitted in three British battleships. In the «amc year a number of land stations were sent out to the South African war and used in the field, and the Government had the Sandwich Islands connected together. In 1900 the system was tidopted by the Norddeutscher-Lloyd Company, and wufe installed in one of their big liners. In 1901 the first message was sent from Poldhu, in. Cornwall, to Newfoundland, a distance of 1800 miles. In the beginning of the following year Mr. Marconi got his messages over 2000 miles, and in the same year the Canadian Government had the system installed in Canada. From that time onwards the number of Marconi stations in the world had grown with greab rapidity. In 1904 thD Kussian Government ordered it for their own purposes, and used the system during-their war with Japan. hi 1905, the post office for the first time accepted telegrams for communication with vessels at sea. At the present date, every British battleship is fitted with .the Marconi system, every large liner has its daily newspaper, and the number of laud and ship etationo is considerable. A short time ago a message was received from a point in South America, it distance of 6000 miles. OTHER CLAIMANTS. Counsel oxaminod at great length the state of public knowledge with respect to wireless telegraphy at the date of the patent, and the discoveries upon which the defendants rely as anticipation of Mi\ Marconi's invention, lie said that during a lecture in 1894, Sir Oliver Lodge had deflected a galvotneter from ;i distance of a few yards, but all that Sir Oliver Lodge had then done was to demonstrate the existence of ether waves. In almost every other civilised country Mr. Mareom had received the highest honours, but there was a small section of scientific men in this country who, from the ver3 f first, had said that Mr. Marconi hud never invented anything, but had stolon feis ideas from Professor Lodge, who. great as ho was, had never, counsel assorted, contributed anything to wireless telegraphy. There was not—a pcintilla of previous information to be found anywhere with respect to Air. Marconi's invention, which had now been brought to such a state of accuracj that Mr. Marconi could regulate his vaie lengths by inches.