Victory for Tesla in Court Decision

He Is Credited with First Obtaining Idea of Utilizing Split-Phase Currents.

IN USE ON SMALL MOTORS

Opinion Given Is in Suit of the Westinghouse Against the Sangamo Electric Company.

Judge Archibald, of the United States Circuit Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, has given an important decision in favor of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company in a suit against the Sangamo Electric Company. The decision declares that Nikola Tesla in vented the split-phase alternating currents prior to the discovery of the same thing by an Italian electrician named Farraris.

The ownership of the split-phase patents is regarded by electricians as very important. The most successful small motors now use this current. Nearly all fan motors are run by it.

The decision covers about fifty pages of typewritten matter and shows that from the evidence produced Tesla announced his discovery in the latter part of 1887, while Farraris did not make known the result of his investigations until April 22, 1888.

Counsel for the Westinghouse Company said yesterday that the Tesla patents had been recognized generally up to the present and that probably no infringement suits would follow.

The Tesla effect, so called, is the production of a whirling or rotating magnetic force by means of two alternating currents out of phase with each other.

In his fundamental patents Tesla produced these out of phase currents at the generator and transmitted them over three wires to the motor, where they were used to produce the rotating or "Tesla field."

In the split-phase patents he generated a single phase current and transmitted it as a single phase current, and then at or near the motor derived from it the second or out of phase current, which, in conjunction with the transmitted current, is used for producing the same class of rotating field in the motor.

Farraris' invention was along similar lines: