Expiring Tesla Patents

Motors May Be Somewhat Cheapened by Their Lapse.

There is a diversity of opinion as to the probable effect the announcement of the expiration of the famous Nikola Tesla patents, covering the alternating current dynamo, will have upon the electrical world.

Among the experts at the Patent Office and among conservative patent attorneys generally It is not anticipated that a stir will be created that will equal the one caused by the dying out of the Bell telephone patent. On the other hand, reports are current that many of the large factories of the United States, In anticipation of the expiration of the patents, have equipped their factories with machinery for manufacturing electric motors on a large scale.

The Tesla patents have been known for years as the "three fundamental patents." For years they have been In possession of what is called the "Patent Pool Trust," and Tesla has been drawing royalties from them. It is said that much of the money the picturesque Inventor has received from this source has been applied to his experiments In wireless telegraphy. His mysterious tower at Wardencllyfe. L. I., is said to have been built In part by money subscribed by J. Pierpont Morgan and in part out of the royalties received from the motor patents.

George D. Seely, the veteran electrical examiner at the Patent Office, looks for no great stir on account of the expiration of the patents. "There may be some little excitement," he sald," but it will not be an earthquake by any means. It will have the effect of lowering the market price of electric motors some, and probably some manufacturers not now manufacturing electric motors will put them on the market."

The field thrown open by the dying out of the patents is not so large as would appear at a first glance. While the three fundamental principles are absolutely necessary to the construction of an electric rotary motor, the improvements which have been made from time to time enter, largely into making the motor of the great commercial value that it is today, and the patents on the improvements still stand good.

The Westinghouse people hold the greater number of these subsidiary patents, and they announce that they will fight any infringements. — Washington Times.