Lightning Man_ The Accursed Life of Samuel F. B. Morse - Kenneth Silverman [168]
An editorial in the recently established New York Times put Morse’s case fairly:
Grant that MORSE was, as is claimed, indebted to the suggestions of others…. MORSE was the man who was publicly experimenting, in our midst, on this subject—inviting scientific gentlemen to witness his progress, who besieged the doors of Congress for an appropriation to enable him to demonstrate the practicability of his invention; who entered his caveat and obtained his patent; who, in 1844, laid down the first line of Electric telegraph in this country, from Washington to Baltimore, and sped the first aerial message on its electric path…. If others knew that electricity could be used for recording language at a distance, and kept the knowledge from the public, or were too indolent or careless to reduce it into practice, we think they are too late to claim the credit, after another, by labor and devotion, has accomplished the work.
With the help and collaboration of others, a normal situation for inventors, Morse created a telegraph system that against many competitors repeatedly proved itself to be the cheapest, the most rugged, the most reliable, and the simplest to operate. By perseverance that would not be denied he made it a commercial reality—the catalyst, to look ahead, of an entire industry and the beginning of a worldwide network.
The Supreme Court spoke in February 1854. Its thirty-seven-page decision gave Morse total victory—nearly. The justices ruled that, legally, Morse’s telegraph preceded the devices of English and Continental inventors. In using the scientific research and experiments of others, including Joseph Henry, Morse did no more than all inventors do in creating a machine with several elements: “the fact that Morse sought and obtained the necessary information and counsel from the best sources, and acted upon it, neither impairs his rights as an inventor, nor detracts from his merits.” On these grounds the Court unanimously declared Morse “the first and original inventor of the Telegraph described in his specification.” The Columbian telegraph, they said, had the same object as Morse’s and used substantially the same means, thereby infringing his patent. They imposed upon it a “perpetual injunction.”
But on the important matter of Morse’s right to a “general principle,” the justices split four to three. They had in mind the eighth claim of Morse’s reissued patent. It reserved to him the exclusive use, as he put it, of “the motive power of the electric or galvanic current, which I call electro-magnetism, however developed, for marking or printing intelligible characters, signs, or letters, at any distances.” Chief Justice Taney, in his majority opinion, ruled that the claim was too broad, inhibiting improvement and innovation. Some inventor might discover an even simpler or less expensive means of telegraphic recording by electricity, without using any part of Morse’s system. The Court declared this one item in Morse’s patent illegal and void. The close vote dramatized the conflict in contemporary patent law between concern for protecting an inventor against piracy, and concern for the public benefit and economic growth that might result from improvements on his invention—a conflict that would lead to extensive reform of the law.
Kendall, in Washington, telegraphed to Morse the substance of the Court’s decision. “Though not all we hoped for,” he said, “it is for you a signal triumph.” Morse thought so too. He believed that in validating his patent at the highest level, the justices not only killed the Columbian telegraph. They also “utterly annihilated” House’s printing telegraph and Bain’s electrochemical version, and protected him against “all other recording Telegraphs