Nikola Tesla - His Patented Inventions - The Basic Character of His Claims

The Tesla patents are remarkable for the novelty of the underlying ideas as well as the extreme care with which the specifications are drawn. A great many of his patents have been fought as no others before, but in all the principal issues, without exception, the inventor was victorious. His wireless system involves a score of discoveries and improvements of great importance which are covered by broad claims, from among which the following, contained in his patents numbers 645,576, 649,621, 723,188, 725,605 and 787,412, may be quoted:

“The method hereinbefore described of transmitting electrical energy through the natural media, which consists in producing at a generating-station a very high electrical pressure, causing thereby a propagation or flow of electrical energy, by conduction, through the earth and the air strata, and collecting or receiving at a distant point the electrical energy so propagated or caused to flow.”

“The combination with a transmitting coil or conductor having its ends connected to ground and to an elevated terminal respectively, a primary coil in inductive relation thereto and a source of electrical oscillations in said primary circuit, of a receiving conductor or coil having its ends connected to ground and to an elevated terminal respectively and adapted to be excited by currents caused to be propagated from the transmitter through the natural medium and a secondary circuit in inductive relation to the receiving-circuit and receiving devices connected therewith, as set forth.”

“The combination with a transmitting instrument comprising a transformer having its secondary connected to ground and to an elevated terminal respectively, and means for impressing electrical oscillations upon its primary, of a receiving instrument comprising a transformer having its primary similarly connected to ground and to an elevated terminal, and a translating device connected with its secondary, the capacity and inductance of the two transformers having such values as to secure synchronism with the impressed oscillations, as set forth.”

“The method of operating distant receivers which consists in producing and transmitting a plurality of kinds or classes of electrical impulses or disturbances, actuating by the impulses or disturbances of each kind or class one of a plurality of circuits tuned to respond to impulses of such kind or class and operating or controlling the operation of a receiver by the conjoint action of two or more of said circuits, as set forth.”

“In a system for the transmission of electrical energy, the combination with a transmitter adapted to produce electrical waves or oscillations varying in character in a predetermined order, of a receiving instrument responsive to said oscillations and dependent for operation upon the action thereof in a corresponding order, as set forth.”

“The improvement in the art of transmitting electrical energy to a distance which consists in impressing upon the earth electrical oscillations of such character as to produce stationary electrical waves therein, as set forth.”