4 7 8 D O C . 6 6 O P I N I O N O N S I G N A L V S . A T L A S
ADftS. [35 335]. The document consists of six pages, four of which are numbered. The two unnum-
bered pages, the first of which contains text that has been crossed out, are interleaved between pages
2 and 3. Sequential page numbers are here provided in the margin in square brackets. The crossed-out
page is presented as [p. 1] because it appears to be an aborted draft of [p. 2].
[1]Dated on the assumption that the document was prepared around the same time as the following
document. For the reasoning behind the dating and title assignment for this document, see the follow-
ing note.
Court expert opinions were impartial opinions solicited by the courts rather than by the parties to
a legal suit (see Doc. 21, note 1).
[2]In this document, the plaintiff’s patent is Deutsches Reichspatent 256747, entitled “Vorrichtung
zur Bestimmung der Richtung von Schallwellen,” which was granted on 19 February 1913 to Aurel
Meckel. The patent was described as a “device for the determination of the direction of sound waves,
characterized by the arrangement of microphones at larger intervals along the walls of a ship” (“Vor-
richtung zur Bestimmung der Richtung von Schallwellen, dadurch gekennzeichnet, daß längs der
Schiffswände verteilt in größeren Abständen voneinander Mikrophone angeordnet sind”).
The defendant’s patent is probably Deutsches Reichspatent 301669, entitled “Vorrichtung zur Be-
stimmung der Schallrichtung,” granted on 28 September 1920 to Erich M. von Hornbostel (1877–
1935) and Max Wertheimer (see note 11 for the argument to this assumption). According to the patent
description of Deutsches Reichspatent 301660, the human ears are used for finding the direction of a
sound source. The precision is enhanced by enlarging the time difference with which the sound waves
arrive at the ears by using horns or microphones at a distance greater than that of the ears. This in-
creases the apparent distance of the sound source from the center. If the setup is movable, a position
can be found in which the sound appears to come from the center if it comes from a direction perpen-
dicular to the line connecting the two microphones.
Both von Hornbostel and Wertheimer worked at the Psychological Institute of the University of
Berlin. They published a paper describing their research (Hornbostel and Wertheimer 1920). Wert-
heimer was an acquaintance of Einstein’s (see Einstein to Max Born, after 3 July 1918 [Vol. 8, Doc.
580] and Einstein to Pauline Einstein, 11 November 1918 [Vol. 8, Doc. 651], note 3).
In the following document, the plaintiff’s patent is Deutsches Reichspatent 301669; the defen-
dant’s patent is not named, but is probably Deutsches Reichspatent 256747 (see the following docu-
ment, note 8). Because of this reversal of the roles of plaintiff and defendant, this and the following
document probably represent court expert opinions for a lawsuit and a countersuit. German patent law
allowed for treating a lawsuit and countersuit in the same proceedings. In a countersuit, “[t]he defen-
dant can apply for revocation . . . of one of the plaintiff’s patents, if the same bears a technical rela-
tionship to the patent that the plaintiff is contesting” (“Der Beklagte kann . . . die Erklärung der Nich-
tigkeit . . . eines dem Kläger erteilten Patents verlangen, wenn dasselbe mit dem in der Klage
angegriffenen Patent in einem technischen Zusammenhange steht.” Seligsohn 1920, p. 377).
Since the title line in the following document shows Atlaswerke as the plaintiff and Signal Co. as
the defendant, it can be inferred that in the present document Signal Co. is the plaintiff and Atlaswerke
the defendant. Meckel’s patent was granted seven years earlier than Hornbostel and Wertheimer’s.
This makes it probable that Signal Co. sued Atlas Works, and that Atlas Works filed the countersuit.
[3]Deutsches Reichspatent 131235, entitled “Vorrichtung zum Melden der Annäherung von Schif-
fen mittels unter Wasser angeordneter Schallaufnehmer,” was granted on 5 June 1902 to Mario Russo
D'Asar. The invention is based on the detection of sound by a set of directional microphones arranged
on the ship’s side walls.
[4]British Patent 15,102, A.D. 1910, entitled “Improvements in Apparatus for Submarine Signal-
ling,” was granted on 19 January 1911 to Thomas J. Bowlker.
[5]US Patent 224199, entitled “Topophone,” was filed on 30 September 1879 on behalf of Alfred
M. Mayer.
[6]The full quote is: “In carrying out the principles of my invention, I take advantage of the fact that
in water, as well as in air, different portions of the sound wave reach different objects at different
moments, and that the interval of time elapsed between the arrival of a sound wave or group of sound
waves at one point, and its arrival at another point in close proximity to the first, may be an indication
as to the direction from which the sound wave arrives.” British Patent 15,102, A.D. 1910.
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