Wireless at the Bar: Experts, Circuits and Marconi’s Inventions in Patent Disputes in Early Twentieth-Century Britain

Abstract

This chapter brings together the law and the relevant institutions at the center of the analysis, with the aim of shedding light on the culture of invention as it developed and, eventually, prevailed in the field of wireless technology. It supplements the existing historiography of the wireless industry in Britain in the early twentieth century which focuses on the business strategies, the development and economics of manufacture and the role of corporate R&D in technological transitions, as well as that of contracts and agreements in a national and international setting. Inventorship in the industrial setting of wireless is reconstructed as a complex activity that was formed through the performance, agency and, most importantly, interaction of various experts and actors. The management of Marconi’s inventions involved circulation of knowledge, expertise, credit and trust in various locations: the laboratory, the public sphere of technical journals and the law courts. The case study in this chapter concerns the making of a patent, and a strong monopoly, through the decision-making process of the British law courts. The story argues that Marconi’s success in the Marconi vs British Radio Telegraph and Telephone Company court case was the result of preparation and organization, and the use of experts who combined scientific, practical and legal credibility. Despite the ideologically driven public discourse on the cognitive and social superiority of science over invention and practice, in the law courts a mixture of scientific authority and practical experience provided credible witnessing.