the invention of that high-school age. As a matter of fact, it involves 20 or more separate inventions and is the final product of a fairly good research laboratory.

Mr. DIENNER. Before you pass it to the committee will you tell briefly how it operates or what it does?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. In this tube the image to be transmitted is focused onto this silver plate here, which has the property of emitting electrons.

The CHAIRMAN. How is it focused?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. It is focused through this clear window, the window in this end of the tube.

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, that is pointed at the image which it is desired to televise?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. It is placed behind the lens. An optical lens picks up the image, a regular photographic lens, and focuses it on this cathode, this being in the plane of the image as though it were a film in the ordinary camera. The electron emission from this cathode is drawn in this direction by an electric field and focused by means of a magnetic lens so that in this plane here we have the electrical counterpart of this image here.

Taking a cross-section of the electrical image there, it corresponds in electrical intensity to the light intensity of the corresponding plane back here. A small portion of that is picked up by a tiny aperture in the shield, this metal shield which you can see through here, and that registers then, or records, the electrons from one particular area in this image back here. Then, by means of deflecting magnetic fields we can sweep this over the image in a fashion, any desired scanning fashion. The way we do it is the manner in which you would type a page of script, but at a very high rate. It scans the entire image in one-thirtieth of a second, and in that time draws 441 lines across this image in the back.

Inside this little shield is this tube, reduced. That is, exactly the same number of elements you see in this tube are positioned inside this small tube here, and it amplifies the electrons entering the aperture. The portion of this electron picture selected is amplified by a factor in this tube 100 times before it enters the conventional amplifiers that are external to the tube.

The CHAIRMAN. Is this the same principle as that by which the news associations today transmit photographs, except that they do it by wire, and this does it by radio?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. They do it mechanically. If they could speed up their apparatus 10,000 times they would accomplish practically the same result that this tube accomplishes. They wrap a photo negative around a cylinder, very much as the old Edison cylindrical phonographs did, and transmit the impulses in the receiver and there, by a light belt, change the impulses back to light and record it photographically or otherwise.

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, the principle, the transmutation as it were, of an optical image into an electrical image, and the transmission of an electrical image either by wire as the news photographic associations do, or by radio, as yours does.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. With one exception. The news system does not convert to an electron image first. It tears the picture down and converts it into a train of signals which go over a wire. We do it so we

can make this wheel draw 441 lines in one-thirtieth of a second, instead of approximately that number of lines in 7 or 8 minutes.

The CHAIRMAN. When you draw the line you pick up the electrons just as the other machine picks up the impulses.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Picks up the light and converts it into electrons. Mr. PATTERSON. What is the name of this tube?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. The image dissector tube, or the dissector multiplier.

Mr. PATTERSON. And it is designed primarily to transmit motion pictures, but it can be applied to other uses?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. It is not the tube we propose for that purpose. The other tube is the one we use for direct pick-up. That tube is standard equipment in half a dozen different television systems now.

IMPOSSIBILITY OF OBTAINING FINANCIAL BACKING WITHOUT PATENT SYSTEM 1

Mr. DIENNER. Going back to your main problem of getting under way, how does it seem possible, without calling on the patent system, to get such an enterprise started?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Why, without the patent situation I don't see any hope of starting any such an enterprise. Certainly no one can be expected to subscribe such a large amount of money without having it protected; without having a basic reason for so doing and without the money, without this order of money, no such developmentwell, there is no point in ever starting any development of that magnitude.

Mr. DIENNER. And if, after getting your patents, you had to grant licenses to others on demand, do you suppose you could have gotten the backing?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. If we had to grant licenses on demand the value of the patent would be so materially decreased that we might just as well not get a patent.

Mr. DIENNER. I understand you have relations with other companies. Have you any cross licenses with any company?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. We have a cross-licensing agreement with the American Telephone & Telegraph Co., we have licensing arrangements with Fernseh and Baird in London.

Mr. DIENNER. You heard the testimony of Dr. Jewett yesterday regarding the electron tube used on the Bell telephone lines. A question was raised as to why a tube of the same long life and small current consumption is not furnished to the public. Will you please explain what the facts of the situation are?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. The telephone company, I think, made the reason for their long life tube very clear; the necessity for reduction of operating costs and the fact that the desired characteristics of the tube could be so completely specified made possible the long life which they have achieved.

In radio, there are two points that were brought out, one that the tube uses less filament power, less heating power or operating power, and therefore results in economy where there are so many of them used. That was perfectly true. That is perfectly true, that it did at the time evolved use much less power. It doesn't, however, use

1 This subject is resumed on p. 1075, infra.

Supra, p. 953, et seq.

less power than modern radio tubes, of which there are many models actually using less.

The question as to why 50,000 hours of service is not used for radio tubes can be well understood if you remember that there are in current use from 75 to 200 different types of radio tubes which must be kept available to the radio set owners because of the very rapid development of radio. Receivers sold 7 years ago or 10 years ago must still get tubes in some way, and those tubes, even though rendered obsolete by later developments, still have to be capable of production.

As a matter of fact, radio tubes have been made with life approaching the 50,000 hours, and certainly could be made available if the public desired them. The fact of the matter, in my opinion, is that the public demand for such a tube does not exist, for the very reason that the rate of obsolescence in radio tube sales is such that from 12 to 25 new tube models appear every year, and actually, the obsolescence ́in radio amounts to a complete set of tubes a year. I know of several models of tubes which are capable of 10 to 12 thousand hours of service. The fact that a longer life tube is not available is in no way an attempt to evade public demands. If the public demanded a 50,000-hour tube they could have it. As a matter of fact, our company is licensed to make that tube and knows how to make it. There are perhaps 10 or 12 other licensed radio manufacturers who also can make that tube.

The CHAIRMAN. By whom are you licensed?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. By American Telephone & Telegraph. We can manufacture anything directly not competing with telephone apparatus under any of their patents.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there any other limitation upon the use of that license?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. To the best of my knowledge, no. The limitation is simply that we must not compete in telephonic service with Western Electric.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there any limitation upon the amount of production or anything of that kind?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. No limitation as to the amount of production. I should say none.

The CHAIRMAN. Any control as to price?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. No control as to price.

The CHAIRMAN. So that you conceive yourself to be free to use this, except not in competition

Mr. FARNSWORTH (interposing). We couldn't supply telephone repeaters, but we have no intention of attempting to produce such a tube because the present production of radio tubes, the evolution of the radio-tube policy, hasn't been haphazard by any means. It has been to meet public demand. I don't believe there is any market for a 50,000-hour tube, because nobody wants a tube that will last 50 years in a radio. Their set becomes obsolete after perhaps 10,000 hours, and if they want a tube which will last 10,000 hours they can get them.

Mr. DIENNER. You mean they are on the market now?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. They are on the market now.

Dr. LUBIN. In making up such a tube, would any other patents than the Bell patents be involved?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I doubt if at the present time any patents would be involved. That work is almost all expired art. I am speaking now of art represented by work of Nicholson and Dr. Arnold, and vacuum technique, most of which is expired art, so that even the unlicensed companies could make such a tube.

Mr. DIENNER. Mr. Farnsworth, what was the first experience of any member of your family with the patent system?

PATENTS ON USELESS INVENTIONS

Mr. FARNSWORTH. My father, who made a very small amount of money and to whom the amount of money which I will mention represents perhaps 3 or 4 months' savings, put up in 1924 a sum to the extent of $150 to finance an invention of mine indirectly concerned with television. That is, I visualized it as a way of getting money to go on with my television work. I had contact with a certain nationally known patent attorney. The application which I got seemed to be in very good order, beautiful drawings, beautiful specifications; as I regard the patent today, totally useless. It was an idea not worth patenting. It should have been told to me that it was not worth patenting, and the fact that it was patentable can certainly be said of almost anything you can conceivably think up. There is certainly some kind of claim you can get on it.

I think that that type of practice on the patent attorney's part represents a very questionable part of our patent system, and unfortunately is the part which brings in the inexperienced inventor, and the inventor of very meager means.

The CHAIRMAN. You mean that the patent attorneys use their art in phrasing claims for ideas to induce inventors to prosecute the patent, ideas which are useless and which the patent attorney himself must know are useless.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Certainly anyone with any experience could know that the patent he obtains is worthless.

Representative REECE. My experience has been, if I may say so, that most of the people who invent something become very enthusiastic about it, though it may not hold any great promise in the minds of others who might have opportunities to look upon it.

The CHAIRMAN. I was going to say that I have a little experience, too, Congressman, with respect to the attitude of inventors or those who conceive themselves to be inventors. I suppose to every Member of Congress there come hundreds of letters from persons who think they have ideas that will save the world in one way or another. It is ordinarily the thought of these persons that somebody is waiting around the corner constantly to steal the idea, and I am sure if an attorney told such persons that the idea was impractical those persons would immediately come to the conclusion that the patent attorney was trying to steal their idea and they would go to somebody else: I have had dozens of letters which clearly indicated a belief upon the part of the person who had conceived the idea that unless he was very, very careful, somebody was going to steal it away from him. They exercise the greatest caution in being referred to attorneys. My letters read, "Can you suggest to me an attorney on whom I can rely?" and I am frank to say to you that I know of no attorney practicing

law in Washington upon whom the inventor couldn't rely to prosecute his claim honestly and fairly and exclusively.

Representative REECE. And you are rather cautious yourself, are you not, to keep yourself in a position where you might not be suspected of becoming a part of the conspiracy?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I can well understand that. I am accused of stealing ideas and inventions and everything else, from inventors who are jealous, just afraid that they are going to have their inventions stolen, but so long as we have the present interference practice it is important that such inventors get a record. If we can save 1 out of 100 inventors, if some system can be worked out so that they will make a record of their notion. We will never get rid of the nut inventor. That is a confliction in terms.

The CHAIRMAN. I was just coming to the defense of the patent attorney. I don't know how you can very well avoid the issuance of patents upon useless devices. I doubt very much whether the patent attorney as such could be held responsible for it.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. No; they unfortunately can't. That is why they are able to operate a business approximating fraud, approaching fraud. You may not know of any such attorneys in Washington, but I do, and so does everyone else who deals with patents. That seems a rather strong statement, but there is a distinction between those who attempt to give an appraisal of a possible patenting of an idea with some possible merit, and those who get a patent, no matter whether it is good, bad, or indifferent. In other words, the search is totally useless in such cases.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, if there are fraudulent practices in the prosecution of patents before the Patent Office, that certainly is a subject which ought to be thoroughly examined by the Patent Office or maybe eventually by some committee of Congress. I don't know that it is really part of the functions of this committee, working on a much broader subject.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I have said all that I want to say on that subject.

The CHAIRMAN. Fraud in the prosecution of patents is certainly a subject of great concern to the public and to the law profession, I would say.

Representative REECE. If I may venture to express an opinion, I should doubt, in my present state of mind, the advisability of the patent attorney undertaking to pass upon the utility of a patent or idea that was sought to be patented. As was brought out earlier in the hearings on this question, sometimes an idea might look utterly futile, useless, but turns out to be a very valuable idea. That isn't always the case, but sometimes it is the case, and if an attorney assumed the responsibility of passing upon the utility of a patent, and then someone else got a patent on the idea, and it turned out to be of value, he would be left in a very untenable position, it would seem

to me.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I recognize, of course, the difficulties of the situation. That is why it is there.

The CHAIRMAN. Commissioner Coe, you look as though you wanted to say something.

Mr. COE. I will be very brief, but I think I should make a few remarks right at this particular moment. I agree with Congressman