Discussion of "A History of Some Foundations of Modern Radio-Electronics Technology" Page 1268

the Fiske radio-control patent, the Hammond proximity patent did get reduced to practice, we understand, in both media. It was not generally known, presumably because no money passed in making it available, and there was no threat of a law suit.

16), 17), and 18). The de Forest Audion: We feel that there is need for a formal syllogism:

Major Premise: In writing the words “Audion. This form of detector . . . ,” Marriott had in mind only one form of detector, since he used the word “this.”

Minor Premise: The form to which he referred as being used in 1912 was unquestionably the triode.

Conclusion: The form to which he referred as being used in 1906 was therefore the triode.

Our critic is charging that Marriott was in error or that he did not express himself clearly. Since the patent application was signed in 1906, no one has the right to assume that the inventor did not practice his invention in 1906. The fact that it was not publicly disclosed until 1907 is irrelevant. Strangely, it is we who have to defend an author and his paper, when both were praised by our critic when the paper was first published.

As to the date of the patent, we corrected this formally and not by letter to the critic, because of the criticism, expressed by the exclamation point, that the Patent Office may have failed to consider it for a sufficient period of time. As far as we have observed, one would have to go back to the original Bell patent of 1876 to find an important patent which was issued after only three weeks of consideration.

22) The Lowenstein Designation “Ion Controller”: We believe we understood the comment as written. An “alias” connotes another name without change of the object named. Lowenstein’s device was a triode, and most certainly not an “audion” comprising a diode in series with a B battery, which is the only type of “audion” mentioned in the sentence. We doubt that Lowenstein’s reasons for using “ion-controller” rather than “grid audion” were unethical. The word “audion” automatically signifies a detector in the patent and technical literature. Such a terminology was not sufficiently general for one with the superior knowledge that a triode was also useful for amplification and oscillation uses.

29) Priority of Production of a High-Vacuum Tube. Our critic finally invokes a 1931 statement of the Supreme Court in its termination of a General Electric suit against the de Forest company for alleged infringement of Langmuir’s high vacuum patent 1,558,436 of 1925. This seemingly self-contradicting sentence was lifted from pertinent context, but upon consulting acceptable reports of all three courts involved, we have paraphrased the final decision as follows. “We do not question that Langmuir and Sweetser produced a 250 v, 5 ma high vacuum tube ‘in which the current was limited by space charge, substantially independently of positive ionization,’ in August, 1912. But by legal precedent we think that his legal date of conception of the patent claims based upon this work cannot be the date that he did it but rather the date that he knew that he had done it. We rule that Langmuir’s legal date of conception was in late November of 1912. We further rule that Arnold’s legal date of conception was November 14, 1912, despite de Forest’s strange willingness to accept November 1. Therefore in November, 1912, Arnold anticipated Langmuir by about a week in conceiving the subject matter of the Langmuir claims. But the Federal Telegraph Company used a 54 volt amplifying triode in August, 1912, and a 67 1/2 volt triode in November, thereby anticipating both Arnold’s and Langmuir’s legal dates of conception. Partly upon this Federal evidence, the Langmuir patent is hereby and irrevocably declared invalid and therefore not infringed. We feel it highly unnecessary to rule on the prior statement that Arnold’s reduction to practice of the Langmuir claims was on April 25, 1913.” If our interpretation of the Supreme Court decision is acceptable, our critic must agree that the Telephone Company work was much later than that of the General Electric in the production of high vacuum tubes.

In conclusion, it appears that our critic refused further comment on about eighty per cent of the points listed in our first rebuttal. We trust that he would refuse further comment on at least eighty per cent of the points treated again in this second response to his critiques. We note that his discussions have been offered “in the interest of more correct technical history.” We hope the four papers of these discussions have done much to confirm the correctness of the technical history which we set forth in our September, 1957 paper.