| Administrative History | Alexander Bain invented a "chemical telegraph" which combined Morse code and telegraph technologies. This was sold to an American group but Samuel Morse felt it infringed on his inventions so he filed for a patent in America, whereupon Bain filed to establish the priority of his English patent. The case was heard in 1849 before the chief justice of the District of Columbia Court who ruled that each inventor could claim a patent for those parts of the process they'd invented. In effect, this prevented the widespread adoption of Bain's machine. |