Suiter Swantz IP takes a look back at past inventions and inventors with our Patent Of The Day.
On this day in 1877, Thomas A. Edison filed a patent application for a SPEAKING TELEGRAPH. It was granted on May 3, 1892 as U.S. Patent No. 474,230.
Telegraphs have been made to operate by sound and the movement of a diaphragm has been employed to open and close an electric circuit. In cases where reeds or bodies following the law of the pendulum have been made use of the same respond to changes of tone and produce musical sounds. In telegraphs that are intended for transmitting spoken words there is a difficulty arising from those words generally being uttered in one key or tone, or nearly so, and hence they are not distinct and clear.
This present invention I designate as a “telespecan” or “speaking- telegraph,” because it is adapted to transmit spoken words regardless of the musical key.
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