Tesla Nikola - Symposium Belgrad 2006.pdf - Nikola Tesla - irq65

SIXTH INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM NIKOLA TESLA

October 18 – 20, 2006, Belgrade, SASA, Serbia

Nikola Tesla's Patents

Snežana Šarboh 1

Abstract – The most important part of the Nikola Tesla's

works are his inventions, that are protected by numerous patents

granted to him. Despite of significance of the Tesla's patents, an

exceptionally small number of papers refers to Tesla's activities

related to protection both of his inventions and patents as well.

In this paper are presented the results of the latest investigation

of Tesla patents both in the U.S. and other countries than the

U.S. showing that Tesla had less than 300 patents in 26 different

countries.

inventor, as well, those are ethical rights, i.e. the right to be

referred to as the creator of the invention. Duration of a patent

rights is temporally limited, thus in most countries validity is

20 years, from the filing date of the patent application.

Thereupon, it is open for general public and anyone may

freely use the invention that was protected by the patent up

to that moment. More important is, that the patent validity is

territorially limited, i.e. it is in force only in the country, the

competent authority of which granted that patent, while in the

rest of the world, in all countries where the invention is not

protected by a patent, the invention may be used freely.

Despite of significance of the Tesla's patents, an

exceptionally small number of papers refers to Tesla's

activities related to protection of his inventions and patents as

well. One of the important publications about Tesla's activities

related to the protection of his inventions is [1]. A list of 112

patents, that Tesla held in the United States, was published in

this book, as well as a list of 109 patents that he received in

other countries. These lists contain a total of Tesla's 221

patents. In the introductory text titled "Patenti Nikole Tesle",

Prof. Aleksandar Marinčić, PhD, claims that the total number

of patents, that were issued on behalf of Tesla in the USA, is

112, according to the evidence of the Nikola Tesla Museum,

but it is also noted that the list mentioned above, also contains

patent No. 613,819, which was approved for an invention

named "Filings tube", despite the fact that there was no

reliable data that it was granted to Nikola Tesla.

Many books, focussing mainly on Tesla's U.S. patents,

were published in other countries, some of them containing

complete lists of these Tesla's patents. On the other hand,

Tesla's patents, registered in countries other than the United

States, have not drawn as much attention, and therefore

incomplete, inaccurate and unreliable data thereon have been

published. Even today, on the Internet, there is an information

that Tesla had more than 700 patents (from the web page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Tesla_patents ), which

stands in serious disproportion to the figure of 221 Tesla's

patents, specified in [1].

In order to determine the accurate number of Tesla's

patents, registered in the U.S. as well as in other countries, a

team of experts - patent engineers of the Federal Intellectual

Property Office (now: Intellectual Property Office), visited the

Nikola Tesla Museum in 1992 and 1993. Their goal was to

study and analyze archive material that is kept there, and

based on it, establish a list of all of Tesla's patents, and to

determine whether there had been any patent applications

filed, for which patents had not been approved, and to check if

Keywords – Nikola Tesla, Patents, Patent Families, Inventions

I. I NTRODUCTION

Comparison of biographies of the three great scientists of

Serbian origin, namely Milutin Milanković, Mihajlo Idvorsky

Pupin and Nikola Tesla, shows considerably more differences

than similarities among them. The same conclusion can be

derived on the basis of comparative analysis of their works.

Differing from the first two mentioned, Nikola Tesla did not

make a classical academic carrier for himself. Though he was

author of many articles, lectures, as well as works intended

both for expert and general public, his papers have not been

much cited. His most important works are his inventions, that

are protected by numerous patents. Consequently, one can

find descriptions and drawings of his inventions in appropriate

patent specifications. This is the reason why the patents

present the most important part of the works of Nikola Tesla.

Keeping in mind that Tesla spent much time and money and

put great effort into patenting his inventions as well, it is

important to elucidate how many patents he obtained for

them.

II. P ATENTS A ND I NVENTIONS

The answer to this question is very simple indeed. In public,

the terms "invention" and "patent" are often used as

synonyms. However, although these terms are well known to

all of us, their true meanings are very different.

The purpose of a patent is to protect inventions. This

protection gives exclusive rights to a patent holder, i.e. rights

of property to make, use and sell the protected invention.

Further, the patentee has the right to prevent any third person

to do the same without his/her consent. Besides the rights on

the part of patent owner, there are rights conferred to the

-----------

1 Snežana Šarboh, MSc, is with Intellectual Property Office, Zmaj

Jovina 21, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia, E-mail: sarbohs@yahoo.com

any patent applications had been prepared, that Tesla never

filed. Members of that team were: Ivan Župunski, PhD,

Snežana Šarboh, MSc, Bogdan Todorov, MSc, Ljiljana

Kovačević, Jovan Perić and Slobodan Stojković, who spent

six months at the Nikola Tesla Museum. In addition, the

Federal Intellectual Property Office asked the European Patent

Office (EPO) to send a copy of Tesla's patents that are

available to the EPO, which they did very shortly thereupon.

The patent specifications sent were analyzed in parallel to the

Museum's archive, resulting in exceptionally large working

material. However, due to circumstances, this material was

neither systematized, nor published, except for only one report

drafted and submitted thereupon by the expert team to the

director of the Federal Intellectual Property Office. The

importance of this report confirms the fact that therein, for the

first time, was indicated the existence of Tesla's particular

patents from other countries, which Tesla used to protect his

inventions for which he had no adequate U.S. patents.

Namely, this concerns 6 Tesla's patents from Great Britain,

belonging to the last period of Tesla's work.

The report mentioned above, served as a basis for making a

selection of Tesla's patents published within [2]. In those four

books, 112 of Tesla's U.S. patents, as well as the 6 patents

from Great Britain, mentioned above, were published in both

Serbian and English, which was a significant step forward,

regarding earlier works that referred to Tesla's patents.

Considering the importance of the research performed, as

Tesla's inheritance was analyzed by the industrial property

experts for the first time, and the need to establish a complete

and accurate list of Tesla's patents, and being one of the direct

participants of this research, I accepted the challenge to

process the material gathered and make the obtained results

available to the expert public, as well as a wider audience. The

processing and study of this material, brought about a number

of papers [4]-[9] about Nikola Tesla's patents, that were

published successively, starting from 1999, in "Glasnik

intelektualne svojine ". Unification of these papers into a

simultaneous presentation of new results that have been

obtained in the meantime resulted in the paper that will be

presented in the following part.

scrupules to register inventions that had been developed by his

employees to his own name, which often lead to conflicts

among him and these employees and ended in them leaving

Edison's company.

At the time when he was employed in Edison's company,

Tesla worked on the development and improvement of

dynamo-electric machines, and probably electric arc lamps.

However, in this case, Edison usurped the results of another

persons work and protected these inventions under his name.

Therefore, the public is left without any information about

Tesla's first inventions protected by patents. Looking at the

list of Edison's patents from this period, one can only make

guesses which of these patented inventions had been created

by Tesla, and which ones by other of Edison's employees.

This kind of Edison's attitude was the reason for conflict

between them, but it can be assumed that in this period it was,

that Tesla learned about the importance of protection of

inventions and how to acquire patents for them.

This is supported by the fact that immediately after leaving

Edison's company and starting his own company "Tesla

Electric Light & Manufacturing", Tesla filed his first patent

application in the USA, for the electric arc lamp (patent

application No. 160,574 from 30.03.1885, for which the

patent No. 335,786 (shown in Fig. 1.) was granted). Before

the end of that year, Tesla filed four more patent applications,

one of which also related to electric arc lamps, and the other

three to dynamo-electric machines and their regulators.

The following year, 1886, Tesla filed only three patent

applications, two of them concerning regulators for dynamo-

electric machines, and the third concerning the thermo-

magnetic motor. On the other hand, the U.S. Patent Office

issued Tesla's first six patents, the first patent No. 334,823

relating to a commutator for dynamo-electric machines,

although he filed this application on May, 6th, 1885, one

month after he filed his first U.S. patent application mentioned

above.

During 1887, Tesla submitted six new patent applications.

Except the first two applications, one relating to regulators for

dynamo-electric machines and the other concerning the

pyromagneto-electric generator, the other applications already

belonging to the field of polyphase alternating currents and

relating to motors and generators based on them. However,

three of the applications mentioned, had to be divided, on

request of the U.S. Patent Office. They believed that the

subject of the application did not meet the conditions for unity

of invention, so that Tesla had to derive one divisional

application from each initial patent application, 252,132 from

October 12th, 256,652 from November 30th, and 258,787

from December 23rd. And so the total number of Tesla's

patents reached nine in 1887.

However, this figure is not final. Namely, after having a

look at the archive material that is kept at the Nikola Tesla

Museum, it has been determined that besides the applications

filed to the U.S. Patent Office, for which he received

appropriate patents, Tesla also filed a number of applications

that had not been approved for different reasons. An example

is Tesla's patent application No. 239,481, filed 26.5.1887,

from which Tesla divided a divisional patent application on

25.5.1889, under No. 312,069, for which Tesla received the

III. N IKOLA T ESLA ’ S U.S. P ATENTS

Although it is known that Nikola Tesla started his work as

an inventor back in the period of 1881-1882, when he worked

in Budapest, at the Central Telegraphic Office, there is no

information that he tried to acquire a patent for any of his

inventions.

The situation changed at the beginning of 1884, after he left

for the United States of America, where he started to work for

Edison's company Edison Machine Works. Edison was not

just a great inventor, but also a smart businessman who

successfully lead the company he founded himself and

efficiently used the patent system to ensure himself the benefit

of a monopolistic position on the market and adequate

publicity, resulting in more than thousand U.S. patents. On the

other hand, a great number of his patents are not entirely

original. By them he only protected improvements of

inventions made by other inventors. Edison also had no

patent No. 428,057, for an invention named the pyromagneto-

electric generator. However, after looking at the list of Tesla's

U.S. patents, it is obvious he did not acquire a patent for the

initial patent application No. 239,481. Based on the preserved

data, it seems that this patent application was rejected.

when Tesla again filed a larger number of applications,

namely 9 in 1896, and another 6 applications in 1897, and one

divisional application, after which he filed another 6 patent

applications in 1898. In the following two years, Tesla filed a

smaller number of applications, but the U.S. Patent Office

insisted on having them divided, so that the number of filed

applications in 1899 increased from 2 to 4, and in 1900 from 4

to 6 applications. In the following year, Tesla filed 2

applications, and in 1902 only one.

In the beginning of the specified period, most applications

dealt with high frequency alternating currents and electric

circuit controllers. Later, Tesla focussed more on radio and

remote control, and electrical energy transmission through

natural media. With this series of patents, Tesla's activity on

filing patent applications from the field of electrotechnics,

ended.

The next patent application in the USA, Tesla filed in 1909,

and it was from the field of mechanical engineering, but it had

to be divided into two separate applications, following the

request of the U.S. Patent Office - one for Tesla's pump and

the other for Tesla's turbine. After a new pause, in 1913 and

1914, Tesla filed one application for a speed indicator and the

other for a fountain. A sharp increase in the number of patent

applications filed, followed in 1916, when a total of 6

applications were filed, for inventions including a lightning

protector, a valvular conduit, a flow meter and others.

The last two applications, for which he acquired patents, the

first being a basic application, the other one being an

additional application, Tesla filed in 1921 and 1927, the

subject of which was a method of and apparatus for aerial

transportation.

According to the current list published in [4], Tesla had 112

registered U.S. patents. Based on comparison of this list to

other available sources, it can be assumed that this is the final

number of Tesla's U.S. patents. The list does not include

patent No. 613,819 any longer, which had been associated

with Tesla's name. By looking at the corresponding patent

specification it was found that this patent refers to an

invention under the title of "Illuminating torch" by inventor

George Kelly from Mineral Point, Wisconsin. Instead, in the

afore-mentioned list is included Tesla's reissued patent No.

11,865 relating to method of insulating electric conductors,

the respective specification of which is amended to a certain

extent compared to the one of corresponding patent No.

655,838.

Fig. 1. A page of patent specification of U.S. patent No.

335,786

This means that the number of patent applications filed by

Tesla, in some years was higher than the number specified

here, which refers only to patent applications for which Tesla

acquired patents.

Tesla's activity on filing patent applications increased

during the two following years. In 1888, he filed ten patent

applications, one of which was divided, which brings the final

number of Tesla's patent applications to eleven. The following

year, 1889, Tesla filed fifteen patent applications, which is the

biggest number of patents filed in one year throughout his

whole career. In the following year, 1890, the number of

patent applications filed was significantly lower, only six. The

inventions Tesla requested protection for through patent

applications in the three years mentioned, mainly dealt with

polyphase alternating currents.

During 1891, Tesla filed 7, in the following year only 3, and

in 1893 he filed another 6 patent appplications. The subjects

of these applications still mainly concerned polyphase

currents and their application, e.g. for lighting, electric

railways, and other. It is interesting that in this period Tesla

received his first two patents in the field of mechanical

engineering, for the reciprocating engine and the steam

engine.

In the meantime, the focus of Tesla's work shifted towards

high frequency alternating currents. This caused a two year

pause in filing patent applications, after which came a period

IV. N IKOLA T ESLA ’ S U.S. P ATENTS R EGISTERED

I N O THER C OUNTRIES T HAN T HE U NITED

S TATES

Except in the United States, Nikola Tesla also protected his

inventions in other countries. Contrary to the list specified

above, that contains 112 of Tesla's patents and which could be

claimed to be final to a high degree of certainty, the work to

establish a corresponding list of Tesla's patents in countries

other than the United States, has not been finished yet. The list

of patents given in the [1] containing 109 patents that Tesla

had acquired in 25 different countries, has already been

addressed. In the journal "Glasnik intelektualne svojine", in

[5] at the end of August 2003, I published one list of Nikola

Tesla's patents that included 141 patents from 26 countries.

Although this list contained 32 more patents, completely

unknown up to that moment, than the list mentioned before, at

the moment of its publication there were already some

indications that it is not final, either.

Further adding to this list, that was continued, was based on

my own and the efforts of Mr. Slobodan Stojković, resulting

in complete bibliographical information and patent

specifications for another 25 of Tesla's patents, except a part

of bibliographical data concerning patents No. 47012 and

47885 from Germany, the source for which was [3]. The

results of this research will be presented soon in appropriate

monography. The current list contains bibliographical

information about 166 patents from 26 different countries,

whereby it is necessary to note that the survey of patents is

given separately for New South Wales and Victoria, and for

Australia, which the two previously mentioned British

colonies became part of in 1901.

Now the patent No. 199580 from Germany has been

removed finally from the list of Tesla's patents in countries

other than the United States. There is a copy of this patent's

drawings in the archive of the Nikola Tesla Museum, but

other parts of the document are missing. By analyzing the

corresponding patent specification downloaded from the web

site of the German Patent Office, it has been found that the

patentee of this patent was Paul Lupa, for the invention titled

"Spülversatzleitung mit inneren Querrippen zur Erzeugung

einer zusammenhängenden, schützenden Kruste aus dem

Versatzgut". The document probably came into Tesla's

possession because the Imperial Patent Office in Berlin,

Germany put it in opposition to Tesla's patent application

titled "Valvular Conduit", protected by the U.S. patent No.

1,329,559. On the other hand, the current list includes

bibliographical data about 13 unknown patents until now from

Belgium, 13 from Great Britain, 2 from Danmark, 1 from

Italy, 5 from Canada, 4 from Germany, 1 from Norway, 2

from Sveden and 16 from France, i.e. total of 57 unknown

Tesla's patents compared to the list published in [1].

Tesla had most approved patents in Great Britain and

France - 29 in each country, and a little surprising is the fact

that he had 24 patents in Belgium, while having 18 patents in

Germany and 12 in Italy. Tesla had a significantly lower

number of granted patents in other countries, which goes from

1 to 7.

As noted in the text "Nikola Tesla's patent's" in the [1], up

to the present day, the general opinion was that on the list of

Tesla's patents approved in countries other than the United

States, "there were no patents from the field of power systems

and that the first patents refer to Tesla's arcing oscillator, from

1891". However, analyzing the aforementioned list of patents

Tesla registered in countries other than the United States, it is

obvious that the real situation is essentially different. Tesla

already began to file patent applications in countries other

than the U.S. one year after he filed his first patent

applications in the United States. His first patent application

outside the U.S., Tesla filed in Great Britain on 9.2.1886, for

improvements in electric arc lamp and received patent No.

1,877 (shown in Fig. 2.) for it. In the same year, in Great

Britain, he also filed a patent application for improvements in

regulators for dynamo-electric machines, and shortly after he

filed a patent application for the same invention in Canada. In

1888, he began to protect his inventions related to polyphase

alternating currents and corresponding motors and generators,

in Germany and France, and the following year in Belgium,

too. This completely changes all we know about Tesla's

activities related to the protection of his inventions outside the

United States, and shows that these activities began 5 years

earlier than it had been previously thought. Also surprising is

the scope of his activities. Namely, between 1886 and 1890,

Tesla filed applications in the specified countries and received

a total of 24 patents.

Fig. 2. The first page of patent specification of the British

patent No. 1,877

Tesla's activity related to the protection of his inventions in

countries other than the U.S. covers the period from 1886 to

1922, which means that it lasted 36 years, 7 years less than in

the Unites States. It is obvious that there had been big

differences in the number of filed patent applications from

year to year, a few years being exceptional in regard to this:

1889 (one of them is shown in Fig. 3.), 1898, 1900, 1901,

1910, 1921 and 1922. In every one of these years, Tesla filed

more than 10 patent applications.

would describe a patent that was approved based on the first

application filed, because the term "basic patent", which

would otherwise most adequately describe this case, is already

being used for a patent in connection with an additional

application or a patent of addition. Therefore, in the following

text, the term "original patent" is used instead.

V. T ESLA ’ S P ATENTS R EGISTERED I N C OUNTRIES

O THER T HAN T HE U NITED S TATES I N T HE

F ORM O F A NALOGUES , T HE P ATENT F AMILIES

O F N IKOLA T ESLA ’ S P ATENTS A ND N IKOLA

T ESLA ’ S O RIGINAL P ATENTS

Fig. 3. The first page of description of the first Tesla's patent

in Belgium No. 85866

Starting from the assumption that Tesla first filed patent

applications for his inventions in the United States, and only

after that in other countries, it had to be determined which

patents from countries other than the U.S. corresponded to

which U.S. patents, that is, for which U.S. patents they are

analogues. It is obvious that Tesla often joined a number of

his U.S. patent applications into a single patent application

intended for filing in other country or countries, in order to

reduce the costs of invention protection. Some of the patent

applications are joined together in complete form, as it is the

case, for example with the patent applications for which he

was approved U.S. patents No. 336,961 and 336,962

concerning regulators for dynamo-electric machines, while

with other joined patent applications, only some of their parts

were included, as is the case with applications referring to

U.S. patents No. 685,953, 685,954 685,955 685,956, 685,957

and 685,958, the subject of which is the method of and

apparatus for utilizing effects transmitted through natural

media. The biggest number of patent applications that Tesla

joined into a single application was seven and referred to

electrical circuit controllers.

Analyzing Tesla's patents in countries other than the United

States revealed two surprising facts. First, not all of Tesla's

U.S. patents are the earliest analogues, i.e. the original patents.

Namely, Tesla first filed the patent application concerning

method of and apparatus for aerial transportation in Great

Britain, on 4.4.1921, and only 5 months after, on 9.9.1921 he

filed the same application in the United States, which means

that the British patent application had been filed first, and

therefore the British patent No. 185,446, and not the U.S.

patent No. 1,655,113, is the original patent. Second, for

another 6 British patents from that period, there are no

corresponding U.S. patents, because Tesla did not file any

patent applications for them at all, or because the U.S. Patent

Office rejected his applications. It is interesting that the

subjects of the mentioned British patents are Tesla's

inventions from the field of mechanical engineering, the first

being improvements in the construction of gas and steam

turbines (No. 186,082), the second, improved process of and

apparatus for production of high vacuum (No. 179,043), third,

improved method of and apparatus for the economic

transformation of the energy of steam by turbines (No.

186,083), fourth, improved method of and apparatus for

deriving motive power from steam (No. 186,084), fifth,

The next question related to Tesla's patent applications in

countries other than the U.S., refers to the inventions he

intended to protect by them. Are there some new, previously

unknown inventions? But there are no major surprises, apart

from some smaller exceptions, which will be referred to later.

The content of these patents is dictated by the fact that each

patent is territorially limited, i.e. it is valid only for one

country, being the reason why Tesla had to file a separate

application in each country where he wanted to protect his

inventions. This is the reason why there are many patents in

different countries for the same invention. The set of patents

that protect the same invention in different countries is called

a patent family, while the patents that constitute a patent

family, are called analogues. Of all the patents constituting a

patent family, the first, i.e. the earliest application is the most

important, for multiple reasons. First, the date of this

application is closest to the true date of creation of the

invention. Second, this patent application and/or the

corresponding patent is often published first, thus becoming a

part of the present state of technical knowledge, i.e. the state

of the art and preventing other persons to protect the same

invention by themselves. Third, it is an indication of which

country the inventor is most interested in, because in that

country, he/she would naturally file the corresponding

application first. In our reference material there is no term that

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