art.

"In looking back on those days and scrutinizing them through the years,
I am impressed by the greatness, the solitary greatness I may say, of
Mr. Edison. We all felt then that we were of importance, and that our
contribution of effort and zeal were vital. I can see now, however, that
the best of us was nothing but the fly on the wheel. Suppose anything
had happened to Edison? All would have been chaos and ruin.. To him,
therefore, be the glory, if not the profit."

The foregoing remarks of Major Eaton show authoritatively how the
much-discussed delay in litigating the Edison patents was so greatly
misunderstood at the time, and also how imperatively necessary it was
for Edison and his associates to devote their entire time and energies
to the commercial development of the art. As the lighting business
increased, however, and a great number of additional men were initiated
into its mysteries, Edison and his experts were able to spare some
time to legal matters, and an era of active patent litigation against
infringers was opened about the year 1885 by the Edison company, and
thereafter continued for many years.

While the history of this vast array of legal proceedings possesses a
fascinating interest for those involved, as well as for professional
men, legal and scientific, it could not be expected that it would
excite any such feeling on the part of a casual reader. Hence, it is
not proposed to encumber this narrative with any detailed record of the
numerous suits that were brought and conducted through their complicated
ramifications by eminent counsel. Suffice it to say that within about
sixteen years after the commencement of active patent litigation, there
had been spent by the owners of the Edison lighting patents upward
of two million dollars in prosecuting more than two hundred lawsuits
brought against persons who were infringing many of the patents of
Edison on the incandescent electric lamp and component parts of his
system. Over fifty separate patents were involved in these suits,
including the basic one on the lamp (ordinarily called the "Filament"
patent), other detail lamp patents, as well as those on sockets,
switches, dynamos, motors, and distributing systems.

The principal, or "test," suit on the "Filament" patent was that brought
against "The United States Electric Lighting Company," which became a
cause celebre in the annals of American jurisprudence. Edison's claims
were strenuously and st