Motions in Tesla Suit - Plaintiff Asks The Parts of Marconi Answer Be Stricken Out

In the suit brought by the Nikola Tesla Company for the annulment of the patent owned by the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America and for infringement of the Tesla patent, Judge Augustus N. Hand, sitting in the Federal District Court, yesterday heard arguments on technical motions based on the pleadings. The Tesla Company asked Judge Hand to order several paragraphs stricken from the defendant company's answer to the complaint.

In the first paragraph objected to the plaintiff asked for the elimination of a letter in which it was asserted that the validity of the Marconi invention was sustained by Judge Van Vechten Veeder in the infringement suit against the National Signaling Company. Two other paragraphs alleged that the complaint does not set forth sufficient facts to indicate that the defendant's patent in any way interfered with the plaintiff's patent and the remaining six paragraphs objected to contained the usual allegations to be found in infringement suits brought under section 4918 of the United States Revised Statutes.

In support of the motions it was contended that Tesla was the first inventor of the patent in suit and the only issues to be decided were priority of invention and whether the patent covered the infringement.

For the Marconi Company it was urged that the paragraphs objected to were responsive and material as answers to the bill, and as to the assertions in the letter, it was explained that Judge Veeder, before he rendered his decision, considered the question as to whether or not the Tesla patent anticipated the Marconi patent and had found that it did not because the inventions were not the same.

At the conclusion of the argument Judge Hand reserved decision.