"Wizard" Inventor Has Drawn Princely Income on Electrical Monopoly.
A great stir has been created among electricians everywhere by the announcement that the famous patents of Nikola Tesla covering the alternating current dynamo, have just expired. They have been widely known for years as the "three fundamental patents." Their expiration is an event in the world of electricity. not second in importance to the dying out of the Bell telephone tents. The alternating motor has been a monopoly.
Tesla has been drawing princely royalties on these patents, much of which the picturesque inventor is said to have applied to his experiments in wireless telegraphy. His mysterious tower Wardenclyffe, Long Island, is said to have been built in part by money subscribed by J. Pierpont Morgan, and in part out of the royalties from the motor patents.
In 1885 Prof. Galileo Ferraris, of Turin, Italy. discovered the electromagnetic rotating field, and applied his invention according to William Stanley. to a rotating field motor. In 1888 Tesla received United States patents covering the bread application of the Ferraris discovery. George Westinghouse bought the Tesla patents and also the rights of Ferraris.
The fundamental Tesla patents have been for years in the possession of what is called the "Patent Pool Trust." They have been attacked many times in the courts, but without success. It is now generally believed by electricians that the expiration of the patents releases to the world at large the immensely important principle of the rotary field. There will be a grand scramble everywhere to make the Tesla motor now invariably used without paying any more royalty to Tesla. The Westinghouses announce they have a number of subsidiary patents, and will fight.
