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World Patent Information 28 (2006) 248–250

Oliver Heaviside—An inventor who failed to file crucial patents

Brian Spear

36 Starling Close, Buckhurst Hill, Essex IG9 5TN, United Kingdom

Abstract

Oliver Heaviside was an inventor who had a good insight into the mathematical basis behind much electrical engineering of the late19th century. He was also able to apply his theoretical knowledge to practical problems; however, he seems to have had but a singlepatent. The author seeks to explore the reasons behind Heaviside’s lack of patents to protect and exploit his inventions.� 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Heaviside; Kelvin; Eccentric inventor; Electrical engineering

Patent history is replete with stories of heroic inventorswho filed their patents and thereby made their fortunes—hardly surprising as they are an excellent justification forthe existence of the intellectual property industry. Lessregarded are those who failed to file crucial patents and,among this unhappy band, one of the most interesting isOliver Heaviside (1850–1925) [1,2].

1. Electrical engineering in the 19th century

An undoubted success story of 19th century Britishindustry was cable telegraphy from the 1840’s whichformed the basis of the rapidly growing electrical engineer-ing profession after 1870, a key part of the second indus-trial revolution. Electrical engineering is a practicalsubject but its successful implementation often requiresconsiderable expertise in applied mathematics. However,the industry was largely developed by practical technicianswho came up the hard way without the benefit of formalengineering education (which hardly existed then) and wereusually lacking much mathematical knowledge, often beinghighly suspicious of those who possessed it. Indeed muchwas achieved without as exemplified by the career ofMichael Faraday (1791–1867). Fortunately, for entirely

0172-2190/$ - see front matter � 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.wpi.2005.11.002

E-mail address: brian_spear31@hotmail.com

unrelated reasons, Cambridge University had built up apowerful mathematical school in the first half of the 19thcentury which produced a steady stream of top rate appliedmathematicians, some of whom turned their expertise toelectrical engineering [3]. Perhaps the most famous of thesewas William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin, 1824–1907)whose mathematical expertise was crucial to the successof the Transatlantic Cable in 1858 and who later made afortune from his patent portfolio [4,5]. However, therewere many others e.g., James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879), John Henry Poynting (1852–1914), and Lord Ray-leigh (1842–1919). Nevertheless there was frequent tensionbetween the ‘‘practical’’ and ‘‘mathematical’’ approaches.

2. Oliver Heaviside: the early years

Heaviside was a nephew of Charles Wheatstone (1802–1875) but, after little formal education, came up the hardway by becoming a telegraph operator, as did two of hisbrothers. He spent six years working in Denmark andNewcastle, became interested in the theoretical aspects ofelectricity and published his first technical papers in1872/3. However, his technical opinions annoyed some ofhis superiors , especially W.H. Preece (1834–1913) a risingpractical man. Preece wrote:

Oliver Heaviside has written a most pretentious and impu-dent paper in the Philosophical Magazine for June. He

B. Spear / World Patent Information 28 (2006) 248–250 249

claims to have done everything, even Wheatstone’s auto-matic duplex! He must be met somehow.

Heaviside eventually resigned his job in 1874. A superiorwrote:

Heaviside was a clever worker, but somewhat unruly andespecially so since informed that he was not given an increasein salary. His application to leave the Company is thereforeno great disaster, especially as it will mean a saving.

Thereafter he devoted himself full time to the self taughtstudy of mathematics applied to electrical engineering. Henever married and had a reclusive and eccentric personalityfurther aggravated by deafness. He lived in London withhis parents, worked largely nocturnally, and seems to havehad little or no face to face contact with any electrical engi-neers/mathematicians apart from his elder brother Arthur,though he did later correspond a lot. Although he earnedmoney from abstracting and writing technical articles hewas mainly living-off his parents who seem to have beenexceptionally tolerant of their son’s odd behaviour.

3. A developing knowledge

Despite this unpromising background Heaviside workedthrough Maxwell’s Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism

and produced a highly mathematical explanation of manyline transmission phenomena. His mathematics was fre-quently so abstruse that the mathematicians found it very dif-ficult to understand him-an amazing achievement for apractical man. By 1889 his abilities had gained widespreadrecognition by Lord Kelvin among others and a glitteringprofessional future beckoned. Typically at this point heretired to Devon with his family and apparently never visitedLondon again. A government pension in 1896 gave him amodest independence but his odd lifestyle continued, becom-ing known as the ‘‘Hermit of Paignton’’. His main activitywas in writing up his previous work which appeared as Elec-

tromagnetic Theory in three volumes from 1893 to 1912though he admitted his major innovative work had been com-pleted by 1889. Nevertheless an article on radio transmissionled to the naming of the atmospheric Heaviside layer.

4. Distortionless line transmission

Among Heaviside’s technical cornucopia in 1887 hepublished criteria for distortionless line transmission byincreasing self-induction by various methods and in 1893suggested doing this by insertion of discrete coils in serieswith the line conductors at periodic intervals. This wasnot an answer to a merely theoretical problem as telephonesystems had spread widely since 1880. However, speechquality was adversely affected by line-generated distortionsand this problem became worse as distances increased. By1900 the practical limit for long distance telegraphyappeared to have been reached in the 1200 mile Boston–Chicago link. To overcome this problem, M.I. Pupin, a

Columbia University Professor, and G.A. Campbell, aresearcher from American Bell Telephone, both performedexperimental work based on Heaviside’s theories and filedUS patent applications on loading coils in December 1899and March 1900 respectively [6,7]. Both these were initiallyrejected by the US examiner, the grounds including Heav-iside’s publications, but Pupin was eventually granted twopatents in June 1900, being upheld in 1903. Whenexploited, these saved AT&T 100 million dollars from1900 to 1925 and made Pupin a wealthy man [8]. Pupin’sresulting fame and wealth annoyed Heaviside to the endof his days, as he felt (with much justification) that the ideawas his. Even the local children heard of this and took togathering outside Heaviside’s gate crying ‘‘Pupin, Pupin’’.Many agreed an injustice had been done; in the words ofVannevar Bush: ‘‘The vision was Heaviside’s. The designformulae were Campbell’s’’.

5. Why almost no patents?

The real question is why Heaviside did not file earlierpatents himself. Some historians have argued that thisunworldly personality never filed patents and was probablyunaware of their importance but in fact

• the value of patents was widely known through themoney made by people like Wheatstone (his uncle)and Lord Kelvin and

• my researches have discovered one GB communicationspatent application by Oliver Heaviside in 1881 and sixby his elder brother Arthur in 1888–1891—see theAppendix A.

In 1893 Silvanus P Thompson delivered a paper in Chi-cago on an inductively loaded ‘‘distortionless’’ cable pat-ented in GB/US in 1891/1893 respectively. His idea wasdrawn from Heaviside but his implementation was wrong(the inductive coils were connected in shunt, not series,which did not work). Arthur Heaviside was there and Oli-ver republished his own ideas on distortionless transmis-sion in England in The Electrician at the same time.Clearly there was much commercial interest in distortion-less telephone transmission and Oliver could easily havefiled a patent application based on his theory. As Arthurhad a well paid technical post with the British post office,e.g., he had redesigned Newcastle’s telephone network, heshould have had ample scope for practical work to comple-ment Oliver’s theory as solution of this problem was ofconsiderable importance to the post office too.

One problem was that his earlier nemesis, W.H. Preece,had since become engineer-in-chief of the British post officeand President of the Institution of Electrical Engineers andwas thus the most influential British telegraph and tele-phone engineer of the 1880’s/1890’s. A man with manypositive qualities he exemplified the practical man madegood as a senior manager; among other quirks he dislikedmathematicians and had a very negative view of the patent

250 B. Spear / World Patent Information 28 (2006) 248–250

system. He unwisely participated in the ongoing technicaldebate despite his pronounced mathematical weaknessand came off worse in technical disputes with Silvanus PThompson and Oliver Lodge among others. Heavisidejoined in Preece’s humiliation, describing him as ‘‘the emi-nent scienticulist’’. Preece’s dignity was much disturbedand he was described as behaving like a wounded animal.He had his revenge in 1887 when Oliver and Arthur Heav-iside wrote a joint paper for The Journal of the Society of

Telegraph Engineers and Electricians, discussing, amongother matters, the possibility of practical distortion-freetelephony. Preece was the referee, said it was devoid ofnovelty, and blocked its publication which speaks volumes.The ill feeling between them continued thereafter.Although it is impossible to prove, it seems probable thatthe post office would never have entertained any ideas byHeaviside while Preece still had influence.

6. Conclusion

Failure to patent was a commercial disaster for Oliverand, at the end of the day, must probably be put downto his own odd personality traits which, inter alia, alsofailed to see the importance of ingratiating himself withthe powerful. The well known saying ‘‘It is not what youknow but who you know’’ was one that perhaps he shouldhave taken to heart!

Appendix A. The GB patents of Oliver and

Arthur Heaviside

Source: Search made in the GB name index to complete

specifications, 1860–1907.

O. Heaviside GB 1407 of 1880—concerned with pre-venting induction between adjacent telegraph and tele-phone wires.

A.W. Heaviside (some jointly with others)GB 5913 of 1888—Telegraph insulationGB 7673 of 1889—InsulationGB 13838 of 1889—Junction boxGB 10765 of 1890—Electrical detectionGB 2706 of 1891—Cables or mainsGB 7430 of 1891—Driving pulley

References

[1] Nahin PJ. Oliver Heaviside: Sage in Solitude. New York: IEEE; 1988.[2] Yavetz I. From Obscurity to Enigma The Work of Oliver Heaviside,

1872–1889. Basel: Birkhauser Verlag; 1995.[3] Warwick A. Masters of Theory: Cambridge and the rise of mathe-

matical physics. University of Chicago Press; 2003.[4] Trainer M. The patents of William Thomson (Lord Kelvin). World

Patent Inf 2004;26(4):311–8.[5] Spear B. Submarine telegraph cables, patents and electromagnetic field

theory. World Patent Inf 2003;25(3):203–10.[6] Pupin MI. US652230.[7] Pupin MI. US652231.[8] Brittain J. The introduction of the loading coil: George A Campbell

and Michael I. Pupin, Technology and Culture, vol. 11, January 1970,pp. 36–57.

Brian Spear is a Chartered Engineer and Fellowof the Institution of Electrical Engineers whosecareer was spent in the UK Patent Office. Thisincluded 22 years examining patents relating tocomputers, control systems and telecommunica-tions. He has also spent 10 years on developingcomputer databases/searching, working in theircommercial search arm—the Search and Advi-sory Service, and on IPR lecturing to a wide rangeof organisations. Since retiring he has completedan M.Sc. in the History of Science, Medicine and

Technology at Imperial College London.