Canadian Parliamentary Motion on Alexander Graham Bell

The Canadian Parliamentary Motion on Alexander Graham Bell, in the first session of Canada's

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

37th Parliament

37th Canadian Parliament

The 37th Canadian Parliament was in session from January 29, 2001, until May 23, 2004. The membership was set by the 2000 federal election on November 27, 2000, and it changed only somewhat due to resignations and by-elections until it was dissolved prior to the 2004 election.It was controlled by...

was unanimously

Unanimity

Unanimity is agreement by all people in a given situation. When unanimous, everybody is of the same mind and acting together as one. Though unlike uniformity, it does not constitute absolute agreement. Many groups consider unanimous decisions a sign of agreement, solidarity, and unity...

passed by all four parties of its federal government on June 21, 2002, to affirm that Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone....

, who had lived in both Brantford, Ontario

Brantford, Ontario

Brantford is a city located on the Grand River in Southern Ontario, Canada. While geographically surrounded by the County of Brant, the city is politically independent...

and Baddeck, Nova Scotia

Baddeck, Nova Scotia

Baddeck is a Canadian village in Victoria County, Nova Scotia.It is the county's shire town and is situated on the northern shore of Bras d'Or Lake on Cape Breton Island...

for extended periods of time, was the inventor of the telephone

Telephone

The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...

.

The symbolic motion was a response to the United States'

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

107th Congress'

107th United States Congress

The One Hundred Seventh United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from January 3, 2001 to January 3, 2003, during the final...

earlier resolution (HRes 269) of June 11, 2002, which recognized the contributions of Antonio Meucci

Antonio Meucci

Antonio Santi Giuseppe Meucci was an Italian inventor, a compatriot of revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi. He was best known for developing a voice communication apparatus which several sources credit as the first telephone....

and has been interpreted by some as establishing priority for the invention of the telephone

Invention of the telephone

The invention of the telephone is the culmination of work done by many individuals, the history of which involves a collection of claims and counterclaims. The development of the modern telephone involved an array of lawsuits founded upon the patent claims of several individuals...

to Meucci, who would later be associated with the Globe Telephone Company. The House of Representatives' resolution did not annul or modify any of Bell's patent

Patent

A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

s for the telephone.

During the 108th Congress

108th United States Congress

The One Hundred Eighth United States Congress was the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives from January 3, 2003 to January 3, 2005, during the third and fourth years of George W. Bush's...

another resolution, SRes 223 which was identical to HRes 269, was introduced in the United States Senate

United States Senate

The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

. On September 10, 2003 the resolution was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary

The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary is a standing committee of the United States Senate, of the United States Congress. The Judiciary Committee, with 18 members, is charged with conducting hearings prior to the Senate votes on confirmation of federal judges nominated by the...

where it remained and died, unenacted.

The Canadian parliamentary motion and the HRes 269 resolution were both widely reported by various news media at the time of their proclamations. The HRes 269 resolution is still cited by Meucci advocates as proof that he has been acknowledged as the first inventor of the telephone. The resolution has equally been criticized for its factual errors, inaccuracies, biases and distortions.

Full text of the Parliament of Canada motion on Bell

As directly quoted in Hansard, the official Canadian parliamentary

Parliament of Canada

The Parliament of Canada is the federal legislative branch of Canada, seated at Parliament Hill in the national capital, Ottawa. Formally, the body consists of the Canadian monarch—represented by her governor general—the Senate, and the House of Commons, each element having its own officers and...

record:

Hon. Sheila Copps

Sheila Copps

Sheila Maureen Copps, PC is a former Canadian politician who also served as Deputy Prime Minister of Canada from November 4, 1993 to April 30, 1996 and June 19, 1996 to June 11, 1997....

(Minister of Canadian Heritage

Minister of Canadian Heritage

The Minister of Canadian Heritage is the Minister of the Crown in the Canadian Cabinet who heads the Department of Canadian Heritage, the federal government department responsible for Canada's Arts, Culture, Media, Communications network, and Sport....

, Lib.

Liberal Party of Canada

The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...

Para. #	Verbiage
Intro.	H. Res. 269 In the House of Representatives United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution... , U.S., June 11, 2002.
¶ 1	Whereas Antonio Meucci Antonio Meucci Antonio Santi Giuseppe Meucci was an Italian inventor, a compatriot of revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi. He was best known for developing a voice communication apparatus which several sources credit as the first telephone.... , the great Italian inventor, had a career that was both extraordinary and tragic;
¶ 2	Whereas, upon immigrating to New York, Meucci continued to work with ceaseless vigor on a project he had begun in Havana, Cuba, an invention he later called the ‘‘teletrofono’’, involving electronic communications;
¶ 3	Whereas Meucci set up a rudimentary communications link in his Staten Island Staten Island Staten Island is a borough of New York City, New York, United States, located in the southwest part of the city. Staten Island is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull, and from the rest of New York by New York Bay... home that connected the basement with the first floor, and later, when his wife began to suffer from crippling arthritis, he created a permanent link between his lab and his wife’s second floor bedroom;
¶ 4	Whereas, having exhausted most of his life’s savings in pursuing his work, Meucci was unable to commercialize his invention, though he demonstrated his invention in 1860 and had a description of it published in New York’s Italian language newspaper;
¶ 5	Whereas Meucci never learned English well enough to navigate the complex American business community;
¶ 6	Whereas Meucci was unable to raise sufficient funds to pay his way through the patent application process, and thus had to settle for a caveat, a one year renewable notice of an impending patent, which was first filed on December 28, 1871;
¶ 7	Whereas Meucci later learned that the Western Union Western Union The Western Union Company is a financial services and communications company based in the United States. Its North American headquarters is in Englewood, Colorado. Up until 2006, Western Union was the best-known U.S... affiliate laboratory reportedly lost his working models, and Meucci, who at this point was living on public assistance, was unable to renew the caveat after 1874;
¶ 8	Whereas in March 1876, Alexander Graham Bell, who conducted experiments in the same laboratory where Meucci’s materials had been stored, was granted a patent and was thereafter credited with inventing the telephone;
¶ 9	Whereas on January 13, 1887, the Government of the United States moved to annul the patent issued to Bell on the grounds of fraud and misrepresentation, a case that the Supreme Court Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases... found viable and remanded for trial;
¶ 10	Whereas Meucci died in October 1889, the Bell patent expired in January 1893, and the case was discontinued as moot without ever reaching the underlying issue of the true inventor of the telephone entitled to the patent; and
¶ 11	Whereas if Meucci had been able to pay the $10 fee to maintain the caveat after 1874, no patent could have been issued to Bell: Now, therefore, be it
¶ 12	Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the life and achievements of Antonio Meucci should be recognized, and his work in the invention of the telephone should be acknowledged.
Attest.	Attest: Clerk

): Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the House for unanimous consentUnanimous consent In parliamentary procedure, unanimous consent, also known as general consent, or in the case of the parliaments under the Westminster system, leave of the house, is a situation in which no one present objects to a proposal. The chair may state, for instance: "If there is no objection, the motion... on the following motion, which has been discussed with all parties, regarding Alexander Graham BellAlexander Graham Bell Alexander Graham Bell was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone.... . I move [that]: This HouseCanadian House of Commons The House of Commons of Canada is a component of the Parliament of Canada, along with the Sovereign and the Senate. The House of Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 308 members known as Members of Parliament... affirms that Alexander Graham Bell of Brantford, Ontario and Baddeck, Nova Scotia is the inventor of the telephone. The SpeakerSpeaker of the Canadian House of Commons The Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada is the presiding officer of the lower house of the Parliament of Canada and is elected at the beginning of each new parliament by fellow Members of Parliament... : Does the hon. Minister of Canadian Heritage have the unanimous consent of the House to propose this motion? Some hon. members: Agreed. The Speaker: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion? Some hon. members: Agreed. (Motion agreed to) [continuing....] Hon. Sheila Copps: Mr. Speaker, might I suggest that we forward a copy of this to the congress in the United States so they get their facts straight? Full text of the U.S. House of Representatives Resolution 269 As directly quoted in HRes 269 (Ver. EH), and recorded by the US GPOUnited States Government Printing Office The United States Government Printing Office is an agency of the legislative branch of the United States federal government. The office prints documents produced by and for the federal government, including the Supreme Court, the Congress, the Executive Office of the President, executive... (table and paragraph numbering added for referencing purposes): Para. # Verbiage Intro. H. Res. 269 In the House of RepresentativesUnited States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution... , U.S., June 11, 2002. ¶ 1 Whereas Antonio MeucciAntonio Meucci Antonio Santi Giuseppe Meucci was an Italian inventor, a compatriot of revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi. He was best known for developing a voice communication apparatus which several sources credit as the first telephone.... , the great Italian inventor, had a career that was both extraordinary and tragic; ¶ 2 Whereas, upon immigrating to New York, Meucci continued to work with ceaseless vigor on a project he had begun in Havana, Cuba, an invention he later called the ‘‘teletrofono’’, involving electronic communications; ¶ 3 Whereas Meucci set up a rudimentary communications link in his Staten IslandStaten Island Staten Island is a borough of New York City, New York, United States, located in the southwest part of the city. Staten Island is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull, and from the rest of New York by New York Bay... home that connected the basement with the first floor, and later, when his wife began to suffer from crippling arthritis, he created a permanent link between his lab and his wife’s second floor bedroom; ¶ 4 Whereas, having exhausted most of his life’s savings in pursuing his work, Meucci was unable to commercialize his invention, though he demonstrated his invention in 1860 and had a description of it published in New York’s Italian language newspaper; ¶ 5 Whereas Meucci never learned English well enough to navigate the complex American business community; ¶ 6 Whereas Meucci was unable to raise sufficient funds to pay his way through the patent application process, and thus had to settle for a caveat, a one year renewable notice of an impending patent, which was first filed on December 28, 1871; ¶ 7 Whereas Meucci later learned that the Western UnionWestern Union The Western Union Company is a financial services and communications company based in the United States. Its North American headquarters is in Englewood, Colorado. Up until 2006, Western Union was the best-known U.S... affiliate laboratory reportedly lost his working models, and Meucci, who at this point was living on public assistance, was unable to renew the caveat after 1874; ¶ 8 Whereas in March 1876, Alexander Graham Bell, who conducted experiments in the same laboratory where Meucci’s materials had been stored, was granted a patent and was thereafter credited with inventing the telephone; ¶ 9 Whereas on January 13, 1887, the Government of the United States moved to annul the patent issued to Bell on the grounds of fraud and misrepresentation, a case that the Supreme CourtSupreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases... found viable and remanded for trial; ¶ 10 Whereas Meucci died in October 1889, the Bell patent expired in January 1893, and the case was discontinued as moot without ever reaching the underlying issue of the true inventor of the telephone entitled to the patent; and ¶ 11 Whereas if Meucci had been able to pay the $10 fee to maintain the caveat after 1874, no patent could have been issued to Bell: Now, therefore, be it ¶ 12 Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the life and achievements of Antonio Meucci should be recognized, and his work in the invention of the telephone should be acknowledged. Attest. Attest: Clerk Critical views on the Motion, Resolution and the Patent Caveat In 2003, the distinguished Italian telecommunications inventor and Meucci book author Professor Basilio Catania, interviewed on the parliamentary Bell motion and the congressional Meucci resolution, first commented on Bell's record as an inventor and scientist: "I am not the kind of man who can make statements without proofs. I did not do it with Meucci and I do not see why I should do it with Bell... ...I can, however, state that the theoretical description of the electrical transmission of speech in Bell's first patent is nearly perfect and appears to me as the first clear treatise ever written." Professor Catania later went on to note the straightforwardness of the follow-up parliamentary motion compared to the seaminess of the initial congressional resolution: "The Canadian reaction to an unfortunate passage in Resolution No. 269 of the US House of Representatives is quite understandable. In my opinion the insinuation against the morality and scientific stature of Alexander Graham Bell, in the above resolution, was both unnecessary and unproven, though there had been suspicions that Bell might have fished something from Meucci's ideas. Personally, I would have refrained from stating anything that is not fully proven. I do, however, appreciate that, in the Canadian motion pro Bell, nothing [derogatory] is said against Antonio Meucci... " However, intellectual property law author R.B. Rockman was more critical in his view of HRes 269. After first reviewing the essential details of American Bell Telephone Company v. Globe Telephone Company, Antonio Meucci, et al. (31 Fed 728 (SDNY, 1887)), where he noted major inconsistencies in Meucci's various testimonies, the paucity of direct evidence that both the Globe and Meucci brought forward in support of their defenses and the court's definitive rejection of those defenses in favour of Bell, Rockman then compares the 'Bell v. Globe and Meucci' court decision (of July 19, 1887) with HRes 269: "I conclude that the comments of Mr. Grosvenor [who wrote a memo highly critical of HRes 269 by comparing it with Bell v. Globe] are more likely correct in comparison to the statements [within the preamble of HRes 269] by the United States House of RepresentativesUnited States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution... ." Rockman then proceeded to dissect and parse the U.S. Government's 1887 legal challenge to Bell's telephone patent, which had been brought by United States Attorney GeneralUnited States Attorney General The United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The attorney general is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government... Augustus H. Garland, a major stock shareholder of the Pan-Electric Company which was the instigator of the suit. Pan-Electric sought to overturn Bell's patent in order to compete against the American Bell Telephone Co. It was this very court challenge that is referenced in HRes 269's preamble, in paragraph No. 9, which inferred an immoral and possibly criminal intent by Bell ("...the Government of the United States moved to annul the patent issued to Bell on the grounds of fraud and misrepresentation"), to which Rockland wrote: "The United States House of Representatives in its resolution of June 11, 2002 states merely that the government of the United States filed the lawsuit, and that the Supreme Court found the complaint viable and remanded the case for trial. The House of Representatives resolution, in my opinion, leaves out many of the salient details [of the Garland-initiated suit], and presents a disjointed and incorrect view of the invention of the telephone." The same paragraph No. 9 of the Meucci resolution also did not mention that the U.S. Attorney General, plus another cabinet member and two senators had been given or owned millions of dollars of stock in Pan-Electric, as revealed by Joseph PulitzerJoseph Pulitzer Joseph Pulitzer April 10, 1847 – October 29, 1911), born Politzer József, was a Hungarian-American newspaper publisher of the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the New York World. Pulitzer introduced the techniques of "new journalism" to the newspapers he acquired in the 1880s and became a leading... in the New York WorldNew York World The New York World was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 until 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers... , a fact which many viewed as a strong incentive for them to try to overturn Bell's patent. President Grover Cleveland subsequently ordered the Attorney General not to 'pursue the matter' after the court case stalled out. One of several biographies on the controversial Attorney General Augustus Garland's involvement in the 'Government case' noted: "He did, however, suffer scandal involving the patent for the telephone. The Attorney General's office was intervening in a lawsuit attempting to break Bell's monopoly of telephone technology, but it had come out that Garland owned stock in one of the companies that stood to benefit. This congressional investigation received public attention for nearly a year, and caused his work as attorney general to suffer." The 'Government case' became one of the greatest scandals in Grover Cleveland's presidency, and was ended when Cleveland ordered Garland to discontinue the trial. Other factual errors were also found within the preamble to the HRes 269 resolution, among them were:

Paragraph No. 2 of the resolution referred to Meucci's invention involving "electronic communicationsTelecommunication Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded... ", however Meucci's patent caveat described a 'lover's telegraphTin can telephone A tin can telephone is a type of voice-transmitting device made up of two tin cans, paper cups or similarly shaped items attached to either end of a taut string or wire.- How it works :... ' which transmitted sound vibrations mechanically across a taut wire, a conclusion that was also noted in Rockman's review ("The court further held that the caveat of Meucci did not describe any elements of an electric speaking telephone…..", and "The court held that Meucci's device consisted of a mechanical telephone consisting of a mouthpiece and an earpiece connected by a wire, and that beyond this the invention of Meucci was only imagination.")

Paragraphs Nos. 7 & 8 implied that Bell had access to Meucci's works prior to patenting the telephone ("….Meucci later learned that the Western Union affiliate laboratory reportedly lost his working models", followed by: "Alexander Graham Bell, who conducted experiments in the same laboratory where Meucci’s materials had been stored was granted a patent…. with inventing the telephone"). The same inference in the resolution was also described by Rockman. Research by Professor Catania himself showed that Meucci's samples were reportedly lost at a laboratory of American District Telegraph
ADT Security Services
ADT Security Services, originally American District Telegraph, now also known as simply ADT, is a division of Tyco International and a worldwide supplier of electronic security systems, fire alarm systems, communication systems, and integrated building management systems.-History:There were many...

(ADT) of New York, however ADT would not become a subsidiary of Western Union until 1901. Writer and publisher (and Bell's great-great-grandson) Edwin S. Grosvenor
Edwin S. Grosvenor
Edwin S. Grosvenor is a writer, and the editor-in-chief of American Heritage magazine.Prior to purchasing the latter from Forbes, he was involved in a number of publishing and software enterprises, including Portfolio, a fine arts magazine published in the 1970s and '80s...

also noted that with Bell living and working in the Boston and Brantford areas, and with Meucci living and working in the Staten Island
Staten Island
Staten Island is a borough of New York City, New York, United States, located in the southwest part of the city. Staten Island is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull, and from the rest of New York by New York Bay...

, New York area, there was no overlap where Bell would have had access to Meucci's works prior to Bell's patent application. Grosvenor further pointed out that in 1878, two years after Bell received his patent, the American Bell Telephone Comp., not Bell, was awarded a Western Electric
Western Electric
Western Electric Company was an American electrical engineering company, the manufacturing arm of AT&T from 1881 to 1995. It was the scene of a number of technological innovations and also some seminal developments in industrial management...

laboratory as part of a patent infringement settlement with the Western Union Telegraph Company. Alexander Graham Bell never worked in that laboratory, and the timing of the transfer made it irrelevant in any event to Bell's patent application of February 1876. Additionally, the American Bell Telephone Company and Western Union were both competitors to each other and did not share facilities both prior to, and subsequent to the patent lawsuit settlement.

Paragraph No. 11 stated that "…if Meucci had been able to pay the $10 fee to maintain [his] caveat after 1874, no patent could have been issued to Bell". However Grosvenor noted in a memo that Bell had succeeded in building a telephone based on a sound knowledge and understanding of its principles, whereas Meucci had been found by the court not to have understood the basics of the electric telephone's operation, with that court case having been conducted some time after Bell was awarded his patent. Since Meucci's caveat didn't describe any of the principles of electric telephony, it would therefore have been irrelevant to Bell's application even had the caveat been renewed.

In total Grosvenor listed 10 errors in detail found within the congressional Meucci resolution, and was highly critical of both its intent and accuracy. He also asked two salient questions in Section "C" of the same report: "1) Should Congress overrule the US courts and its own committee, which looked at evidence extensively, and without reviewing any evidence in the matter?", and "2) Should [the U.S.] Congress pass resolutions on historical facts without checking with legitimate historians or their own library
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...

?" The same document also noted that HRes 269 contradicted the findings of its own Congressional committee's investigation, which had, in 1886, produced a report of 1,278 printed pages.

Grosvenor concluded that: " The historical “facts” stated in HR 269 were obtained from highly biased sources, and [were] based on shoddy, cursory research."

External links

Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers at the Library of Congress, 1862-1939
Alexander Graham Bell Institute at Cape Breton University
Antonio Meucci Centre at COPRAS (Italian-Canadian heritage website)
BobsOldPhones webpage on Antonio Meucci (by Bob Estreich, an Australian telephone researcher and historian –includes sections of analysis on HRes 269)
Dr. Basilio Catania Website (website of a telecommunications researcher and historian with an extensive collection of Meucci documentation, including The Proofs Of Meucci's Priority)

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Full text of the Parliament of Canada motion on Bell

Full text of the U.S. House of Representatives Resolution 269

Critical views on the Motion, Resolution and the Patent Caveat

See also

External links