Hum of Machinery in Federal Court

Thomas B. Reed in Electrical Suit Involving Many Millions.

TESLA PATENTS IN LITIGATION

Rival Concern Says Famous Serbian's Inventions Were Mere Ingenious Toys.

Motors, switchboards, storage batteries, festoons of electric wires and nearly all other conceivable electrical appliances made the courtroom look like an electrical powerhouse yesterday when former Speaker Thomas B. Reed appeared before United States Judge Lacombe as counsel for the Stanley Electric Manufacturing Company in an action brought against that corporation by the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company. The apparatus was operated to illustrate the argument of counsel.

The Westinghouse people ask that an injunction be granted restraining the Stanley Company from making, selling or using certain appliances which are alleged to be infringements of patents taken out by Nikola Tesla and assigned by him to the Westinghouse ocmpany.

Mr. Reed raised the question of the Court's jurisdiction in the case, maintaining that the Stanley company's works were in Pittsfield, Mass., and denying that it had ever made, sold or used any electrical appliances whatsoever in the Southern Judicial district of New York. The plaintiff company was represented by Thomas B. Kerr of Kerr, Page & Cooper, No. 120 Broadway, who asserted the defendant company's officers in this city formed a place of business within the meaning of the law, and brought the defendants within the jurisdiction of the court.

Judge Lacombe reserved decision on this point, and the question of the alleged infringements and the validity of Tesla's patents was then taken up, the arguments of counsel being severely technical.

It is said that interests involving millions of dollars depend on the outcome of the present action. Nikola Tesla in 1888 patented an electro-magnetic motor and an electrical system for the transmission of power to considerable distances. Later, Mr. Tesla assigned his patents to the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, in which at that time William Stanley, now the president of the Stanley Company, had an interest. The validity of Tesla's patents several times has been upheld by the Federal courts, but despite this fact Mr. Stanley alleges that he was the one who first discovered and invented the transforming motor which had a practical commercial value. Mr. Stanley's counsel further represented that the inventions of Mr. Tesla from a commercial standpoint, are merely toys, excellent in theory but useless for all practical purposes.

Mr. Stanley withdrew from the Westinghouse Company and in 1890 organized the Stanley Company, the defendants in the present suit, to manufacture and sell the motors he alleges are his invention, but which the plaintiff company claim are infringements of their patents.

Mr. Reed occupied the attention of the court until adjournment time. His argument was technical in the extreme. An expert demonstrated the various points made by the lawyer upon the various appliances set up in the courtroom. It is more than probable that the trial will occupy the court's attention during to-day's session.