1. Carter patent, No. 1,974,387, for a directive antenna system
for use in radio communication,
held not infringed by
petitioner's antenna structures. Pp.
306 U. S. 88,
306 U. S.
101.
Claims 15 and 16 are invalid so far as they claim antennae of
wire lengths intermediate of multiples of half-wavelengths. And, so
far as the patent discloses and claims invention of a V antenna
structure made in conformity to the Abraham formula, petitioner's
structures do not infringe, for none of them conforms to the
Abraham formula. One has wires which are an integral number of
half-wavelengths long, but uses an angle 10% smaller than that
derivable from the Abraham formula; all of the others have wires
which are not multiples of half-wavelengths long and angles not
derivable from the formula.
2. The disclosure of the Carter patent was that the best
directional radio propagation by the V type antenna is obtained in
the direction of its bisector, with a structure in which the angle
of the wires, their length, and the length of wave propagated are
in a definite mathematical relationship expressed by a formula
disclosed in the specifications. The formula shows that the
appropriate angle between each of the antenna wires and their
bisector depends upon the wavelength to be propagated and the wire
length, which is a multiple of half-wavelengths. The formula had
been developed and published by Abraham thirty years previously.
Lindenblad had taught that, with an arrangement of antenna wires at
an angle, radiation will occur in the direction of the bisector of
the angle, and that the preferred angle was dependent upon an
indicated relationship between wire length and wavelength. Carter's
invention therefore, if it was invention, consisted in taking the
angle of the Abraham formula as the angle between each wire of the
V antenna and its bisector, and thus establishing along the
bisector the greatest directional radio activity. The empirical
formula of the specifications and Claims 15 and
Page 306 U. S. 87
16, derived graphically from the Abraham formula, disclosed no
invention other than the application of the Abraham formula to the
V antenna when wavelength and wire length are known.
Held, assuming that it was more than the skill of the
art to combine the teaching of Abraham with that of Lindenblad and
others who had pointed out that the arrangement of the wires at an
angle enhanced directional radio activity along their bisector,
then the invention was a narrow one, consisting of a structure
conforming to the teachings of the Abraham formula as to angle and
wire length relative to wavelength, and is to be strictly construed
with regard both to prior art and to alleged infringing devices.
Carter, avoiding prior art by defining his angle for antennae with
wires of particular wavelengths with mathematical precision, cannot
discard that precision to establish infringement. Pp.
306 U. S. 94,
306 U. S.
102.
3. The application of Carter, at least before the amendments
introduced subsequently to the commencement of the present
litigation, cannot be construed as embracing structures not
conforming to the Abraham formula. And the attempt by amendment to
extend the claims, based on the application of the empirical
formula (derived from the Abraham formula) to wire lengths not
multiples of half-wavelengths, must fail because it involved a
departure from what Carter's application had described as his
invention, and a contradiction of it. P.
306 U. S.
98.
4. It is unnecessary in this case to decide the further question
whether petitioner's structures avoid infringement because the
direction of their principal radioactivity is not in the plane of
the wires. P.
306 U. S.
102.
96 F.2d 587 reversed.
Certiorari, 305 U.S. 582, to review a decree which modified and
reversed a decree of the District Court, 16 F. Supp. 610,
dismissing the bill in a suit to enjoin infringements of
patents.
Page 306 U. S. 88
MR. JUSTICE STONE delivered the opinion of the Court.
The questions presented for decision by the petition for
certiorari are whether the Carter patent, No. 1,974,387, of
September 18, 1934, for a directive antenna system for use in radio
communication, is valid and is infringed by antennae structures
used by petitioner in such communication.
Respondent brought the present suit in the District Court for
eastern New York to enjoin infringements of four patents relating
to radio antennae or their operation. Two were those of Carter and
two those of Lindenblad. Of these, only the second Lindenblad
patent, No. 1,927,522, of September 19, 1933, for an antenna for
radio communication, is of present importance. When the suit was
begun, the application for the third Carter patent, with which we
are presently concerned, was pending. After petitioner had
answered, and respondent, as a result of the litigation, had
acquired knowledge of the particulars of the structure and
operation of petitioner's antennae, Carter, respondent's assignor,
amended the statement of his invention in his application so as, in
terms, to embrace a differentiating feature of petitioner's
structures. After this patent was issued, respondent was permitted
to file a supplemental bill charging infringement of it. The suits
were consolidated, and the parties proceeded to trial on the issues
of the validity and infringement of all five patents.
After taking the voluminous testimony of numerous witnesses, the
trial court found that none of the patents in suit was infringed,
and decreed that the suits be dismissed. 16 F. Supp. 610. It held
that none of them was a pioneer patent; that none had been employed
by anyone; that respondent's commercial structures did
Page 306 U. S. 89
not follow the teachings of any of them, and that consequently
they were not entitled to a broad construction. With respect to the
Carter patent in suit it said: "The disclosure and the claims were
broadened not only contrary to their original terminology, but to
their spirit as well." And,
". . . by those amendments, the plaintiff attempted to mold the
third Carter patent, both as to disclosure and claims, to cover
defendant's antenna systems. This could not lawfully be done."
On appeal from so much of the decree as related to the second
Lindenblad patent and the third Carter patent, the Court of Appeals
for the Second Circuit affirmed as to the Lindenblad patent, but
reversed as to the Carter patent, holding Claims 15 and 16 valid
and infringed. 96 F.2d 587. We granted certiorari, 305 U.S. 582,
because of the nature and importance of the case, on a petition
which urged as grounds for its allowance that validity and
infringement of the Carter patent were in doubt, and that, as
petitioner is the only competitor of respondent in the business of
worldwide public radio communication, further litigation, resulting
in conflict of decision among circuits, was improbable.
In ordinary broadcasting, radio waves are projected in all
directions from the sending station. In radio communication, it is
advantageous, and has long been the practice, to use a directive
antenna by which the waves of radio activity emanating from it are
projected as a beam in the direction of the receiving station. In
practice, the beam is directed at an angle from the earth's surface
toward the ionized layer of the stratosphere, or Heaviside layer,
from which the beam is deflected toward the earth's surface in the
compass direction of the receiving station. In more recent years,
it has been the practice to use relatively short wavelengths for
radio communication.
Page 306 U. S. 90
The radio waves are generated at the sending station by feeding
an oscillating electric current of appropriate character into the
wire or wires of the antenna. The electric waves in the wires
energize radio activity, which the antenna projects as radio waves
toward the receiving station. By modulating or interrupting the
current, corresponding modulation or interruption of the radio
waves is effected, which may be used as a means of transmitting any
desired signal. The waves, as modulated, impinge on the antenna of
the receiving station devised to receive and utilize them as a
means of controlling, with corresponding modulation, an electric
current which, in turn, actuates a mechanism contrived to give
audible or visual expression to the transmitted signal.
The effective part of the antenna is a copper wire from which
the radio waves are radiated, supported on towers or poles at a
height above the ground depending on the wavelength used. The wire
may be parallel with the earth, or vertical, or arranged at an
angle, depending upon the function to be performed. Before Carter,
antennae of two or more wires in varying arrangement had been used.
The second Lindenblad patent showed an antenna of two wires
arranged at an angle in the form of a V or an X, and it pointed out
that, in such an arrangement, radiation will take place in the
direction of the axis or bisector of the angle of the diverging
wires, and that
"the spacing at the open end [of the wires], while variable over
a great range, should be in the neighborhood of a fifth of the
length, and the length of each antenna section should be of the
order of magnitude of five to ten waves long."
While such an arrangement projects the radio waves principally
in two directions along the bisector of the angle of the antenna
wires, the prior art had made use of an arrangement of wires,
parallel to the wires of the angular
Page 306 U. S. 91
antenna, as a "reflector" by which the radiation was projected
as a beam in one direction away from the reflector and along the
bisector of the angle of the wires.
The present Carter patent is for an "antenna system utilizing
standing wave phenomena." Like the second Lindenblad patent, it is
concerned with a V antenna by which the principal radiation is
directed in the plane of the wires along the bisector of their
angle. The disclosure of the patent, in which the court below found
invention, was that the best directional radio propagation by the V
type antenna is obtained with a structure in which the angle of the
wires, their length, and the length of wave propagated are in a
definite mathematical relationship expressed by a formula disclosed
in the specifications.
In explaining his invention, Carter pointed out that
"It is known that, when a wire having a length greater than the
operating wavelength is excited in such manner that standing waves
are produced thereon, radiation will occur principally in the
direction of symmetrical cones having their apices at the center of
the wire. Such is the case with a wire having a length equal to a
plurality of one-half-wavelengths at the operating frequency. The
radiation pattern produced in such instance appears, in
cross-section, in the form of symmetrical cones about the wire. The
present invention, which makes use of these phenomena, in its most
simple aspect, employs a pair of open-ended wires energized in
phase opposition to have standing waves throughout the length of
the wires, the wires having such angular relation with respect to
each other as to obtain a highly directional, efficient, and simple
antenna system. [
Footnote 1]
"
Page 306 U. S. 92
The patent states the mathematical formula by which the desired
relationship is secured, which shows that the appropriate angle
between each of the antenna wires and their bisector depends upon
the wavelength to be propagated and the use of antenna wires of a
length which is a multiple of half-wavelengths. [
Footnote 2]
Page 306 U. S. 93
The significance of the formula lies in the fact that the angle
between the wire and the direction of greatest radio activity is a
trigonometrical function of two variables, the wavelength used and
the "number of half-wavelengths contained in the wire," and that,
as the application stated, the use of the formula, in practice,
presupposes the use of a wire whose length is a multiple of
half-wavelengths. The patent then explains that the angle �
of the formula is the angle between each wire of the V antenna and
its bisector -- in other words, that the angle of the wires of the
antenna is twice �, and hence, like the angle of the
formula, is a function of the wavelength and the length of the
wires, which are each a multiple of half-wavelengths long.
Carter did not invent the formula. It had been developed by
Abraham and published in a scientific journal thirty years before.
Annalen der Physik, 1898, Physikalische Zeitschrift, March 2, 1901.
Abraham's formula expressed the scientific truth that, when radio
activity is projected from a charged wire of finite length --
i.e., one having standing waves, and having a length of a
multiple of half-wavelengths, the angle between the direction of
the principal radio activity and the wire is dependent on
Page 306 U. S. 94
wavelength and wire length, which is a multiple of
half-wavelengths. Lindenblad had described his antenna as using
either standing or traveling waves and, as we have seen, had taught
that, with an arrangement of antenna wires at an angle, radiation
will occur substantially in the direction of the bisector of the
angle, and that the preferred angle was dependent upon an indicated
relationship between wire length and wavelength.
It is plain, therefore, that the Carter invention, if it was
invention, consisted in taking the angle of the Abraham formula as
the angle between each wire of the V antenna and its bisector. By
so doing, he brought the cones of principal radio activity, each
having one of the wires of the antenna as its axis, into
conjunction at their periphery and along the bisector of the angle
between the wires, and thus established there the greatest
directional radio activity.
While a scientific truth, or the mathematical expression of it,
is not patentable invention, a novel and useful structure created
with the aid of knowledge of scientific truth may be. But we do not
stop to solve the problem whether it was more than the skill of the
art to combine the teaching of Abraham with that of Lindenblad and
others who had pointed out that the arrangement of the wires at an
angle enhanced directional radio activity along their bisector. We
assume, without deciding the point, that this advance was
invention, even though it was achieved by the logical application
of a known scientific law to a familiar type of antenna. But it is
apparent that, if this assumption is correct, the invention was a
narrow one, consisting of a structure conforming to the teachings
of the Abraham formula as to angle and wire length relative to
wavelength, and is to be strictly construed with regard both to
prior art and to alleged infringing devices.
Kokomo
Fence Machine Co. v. Kitselman,
Page 306 U. S. 95
189 U. S. 8;
Cimiotti Unhairing Co. v. American Fur Refining Co.,
198 U. S. 399.
Carter's structure was a V having an angle double the Abraham angle
and wires containing a multiple of half-wavelengths.
Carter, using the Abraham formula, calculated the value of the
angle � in that formula for wires up to fourteen wavelengths
long. He plotted the result, which he expressed graphically in
figure 12 of the patent by drawing a smooth curve connecting the
discrete points on the graph which indicated the results of his
computation by use of the Abraham formula. From this calculation,
he derived a formula in empirical form [
Footnote 3] for determining the desired angle when
wavelength and length of wire are known, in which the angle between
the wires is described as twice
a, which is the equivalent
of the angle � of the Abraham formula.
Petitioner uses antennae with wires in V arrangement, but their
wires are not an integral number of half-wavelengths long, with the
exception of one antenna, No. 8, which is four wavelengths long and
uses an angle 10% smaller than that prescribed by the Abraham
formula for that length of wire. The others are of lengths which
are approximately multiples of quarter wavelengths, and their
angles differ from the angles of the formula. The crucial question
in the case is whether a V antenna structure, having a wire length
to which the Abraham formula does not apply and using an angle not
to be derived from that formula, which is the basis of the patent,
infringes Carter's patent. Respondent insists that it does,
because, as it argues, the invention disclosed by Carter's
Page 306 U. S. 96
application, elaborated by amendment and broad claims, embraces
all V antennae arranged at an angle double the angle of the
empirical formula, even though the length of the wires is not an
exact multiple of half-wavelengths, as prescribed by the Abraham
formula. This is the invention of Claim 15, [
Footnote 4] and it is urged that the claim is
amply supported by the statement in the specifications appearing in
the original application that the empirical formula represented by
the plotted curve of figure 12 of the patent "will be found
accurate for all practical purposes where the length of wire dealt
with does not correspond to a whole number of
half-wavelengths."
The trial court, analyzing Carter's application and taking into
account the essentials of the Abraham formula and the statement in
the application that the "object of the present invention is to
disclose the proper angle for conductors or radiators" measured in
multiples of half-wavelengths, evidently thought, as petitioner
argues, that the references in the application to "wires of finite"
[
Footnote 5]
Page 306 U. S. 97
length and to wires "of any length whatsoever" [
Footnote 6] were intended only to refer to
wires of electrically finite, as distinguished from electrically
infinite, length, capable of producing standing waves utilized by
the antenna of the patent, and of any length conforming to the
requirements of the basic formula. [
Footnote 7] It concluded that the correct construction of
the application was that the invention described did not go beyond
the scope of the Abraham formula, and so extended only to the
angles calculable by that formula for standing wave wires measured
by multiples of half-wavelengths. Support is given to this
conclusion by the statement in the application that "[t]he law,
giving the correct angle for lengths between odd and even number of
half-wavelengths, is not given due to its complexity. . . ."
The Court of Appeals placed emphasis on the reference to "wires
of any finite length," and on the statement that
Page 306 U. S. 98
"the empirical formula and the curve of figure 12 will be found
accurate, for all practical purposes, where the length of wire
dealt with does not correspond to a whole number of
half-wavelengths."
It held that the invention disclosed was the application of the
empirical formula to all lengths of antenna wires, and embraced all
angles resulting from such calculation and that the invention was
consequently infringed by petitioner's structures.
Whether or not it was the purpose of the patentee, by these
references to wire lengths in his application to extend his patent
to structures not conforming to the Abraham formula, we are not
able to construe the application, before amendment, at least, as
embracing such an extension. And we think that the attempt to
extend the claims based on the application of the empirical formula
to wire lengths not multiples of half-wavelengths must fail,
because such structures are not within the invention described in
the application.
The formula in Claims 15 and 16 is the empirical formula derived
from the Abraham formula, which is, by its terms, applicable only
to antenna wires which are multiples of half-wavelengths long.
Carter's empirical formula, wholly derived from Abraham's formula,
and taken together with it, therefore discloses no invention or
discovery more than the application of the Abraham formula to the V
antenna. It reveals no scientific law applicable to wire lengths
which are intermediate of multiples of half-wavelengths, and the
application explicitly states that "the law, giving the correct
angle for lengths between odd and even number of half-wavelengths,
is not given." The preparation, by methods familiar to engineers,
of the graph in figure 12, which was but a pictorial representation
of the Abraham formula applied to certain wire lengths specified in
the formula, did not involve invention. Neither the empirical
formula nor its graph gives any clue to the directional radio
activity resulting
Page 306 U. S. 99
from the use of wire lengths intermediate of multiples of
half-wavelengths, which were excluded by the Abraham formula, and
neither afforded any basis for a claim of invention not supported
by the use of the Abraham formula itself.
The claimed use of the empirical formula for the calculation of
the angle for wires which are not multiples of half-wavelengths
long thus involved a departure from what Carter's application had
described as his invention, and a contradiction of it. What Carter
did was to describe his structure in terms of its dimensions,
arrived at by the use of the Abraham formula, which was stated to
embody the applicable scientific law. He then derived the empirical
formula from Abraham. From the very method of derivation, the
empirical formula meant nothing different from that of Abraham. He
then declared the empirical formula to embody a method of arriving
at the measurements of a structure different from the structure
first described as the invention, and not capable of construction
by the method of the Abraham formula. If, as a result of this
legerdemain, a V antenna having wire lengths a multiple of any
fractional wavelength is to be taken as the invention of Carter's
application, then everything that it said of the Abraham formula
and of wires "either an even number of half-wavelengths long or an
odd number of half-wavelengths long" could be discarded without
changing its meaning. [
Footnote
8]
This attempt to broaden the only invention described in the
application through a purely mechanical alteration of the meaning
of the empirical formula, which had been devised as a shorthand
expression of the scientific law on which the invention was
declared to rest, cannot, we think, be taken to enlarge the
description of the invention as measured by the Abraham formula, so
as to include a structure to which that formula does not apply.
Page 306 U. S. 100
This use of the empirical formula for a purpose for which it was
not devised does not justify our construing the application as
though all reference to the Abraham formula had been eliminated and
a new and different one expressing a new and different scientific
law had been substituted for it. The result of reading the
application as respondent contends it should be construed is
precisely the same as though full effect were given to a claim
which goes beyond the invention described, and it is open to the
same objection.
After the present suit was brought, the application was altered
by amendment so as in effect to wipe out all reference to the
scientific law by which Carter's invention was defined. This was
accomplished by changes which implicitly assert that the letter
n of the formula of the invention, the Abraham formula,
meant something different from "the number of half-wavelengths
contained in the wire" of a length of multiples of half-wavelengths
as stated both in the application and in the patent.
The reference in the application to the purpose of the invention
to disclose the "proper angle" for radiators of multiples of
half-wavelengths long was altered by eliminating from it all
mention of half-wavelengths. [
Footnote 9] A sentence added after formal allowance of the
patent states:
"By the term 'plurality of wavelengths' or 'plurality of
half-wavelengths' or 'several half-wavelengths,' it is not intended
that the wires so described shall necessarily be an exact or
approximate integral number of such lengths, unless so specified,
but rather that each of the wires so described shall be
sufficiently long to include the lengths specified."
These amendments operated to modify the Abraham formula so as to
cancel from the application the statement of the scientific law
defining the invention. They left as its definition the
modified
Page 306 U. S. 101
Abraham formula and its counterpart, the empirical formula,
stating a different law which their genesis did not authorize.
We think that these alterations were not permissible.
Schriber-Schroth Co. v. Cleveland Trust Co., 305 U. S.
47, and that, without them, the invention must be taken
to be limited to a structure having an angle double that disclosed
by the Abraham formula, which was made the basis of the alleged
invention. As already shown, neither the Abraham formula nor the
empirical formula describes, or purports to describe, the
directional radio activity or defines the angle which affords "the
best directional propagation" of the patent for antennae of wire
lengths intermediate of multiples of half-wavelengths. The expert
testimony shows that, in fact, neither formula serves that purpose.
The finding of the trial court that they do not make "a correct
showing of what happens when the wires are other than exact
multiples of half-wavelengths" is supported by the evidence. The
testimony warrants the conclusion that differences in wave effect
already noted, [
Footnote 10]
when wires of other than exact multiples of half-wavelengths are
used, produce, through consequent changes in "radiation
resistance," differences in directional radio activity not
calculable by the formulae of the patent. It follows that Claims 15
and 16, so far as they claim antennae of wire lengths intermediate
of multiples of half-wavelengths, are invalid. So far as the patent
discloses and claims invention of a structure made in conformity to
the Abraham formula, petitioner's structures do not infringe, for
none of them conforms to the Abraham formula.
For reasons already indicated it is not material that the
variations are small between the angles used by petitioner for wire
lengths of multiples of quarter wavelengths
Page 306 U. S. 102
and those obtained by application of the empirical formula.
Further, Carter's advance over prior art was in specifying an exact
angle for wires of the prescribed length. Lindenblad had indicated
a preferred angle, and Bruce, before Carter, had plotted a rule of
thumb graph, which the trial court found to be prior art, showing
the directional radio activity of a V antenna and exhibiting
relatively small variations from that of Carter. Carter, avoiding
prior art by defining his angle for antennae with wires of
particular wavelengths with mathematical precision, cannot discard
that precision to establish infringement.
Kokomo Fence Machine
Co. v. Kitselman, supra; Cimiotti Unhairing Co. v. American Fur
Refining Co., supra, cf. General Electric Co. v. Wabash Appliance
Corp., 304 U. S. 364.
It is unnecessary to discuss the further question whether
petitioner's structures avoid infringement because the direction of
their principal radio activity is not in the plane of the wires, an
operative difference from the antennae described by the patent
which the court below found to be due wholly to ground effect,
which it thought must be assumed to be envisaged by, though not
stated in, the Carter patent.
Reversed.
MR. JUSTICE ROBERTS took no part in the consideration or
decision of this case.
[
Footnote 1]
Understanding of the disclosure and other features of the patent
requires a brief explanation of its terms. The term "long," as
applied to an antenna, means a wire which is long in relation to
the wavelength used. The term "standing waves," as distinguished
from "traveling waves," describes the phenomenon manifested when an
oscillating electric current of radio frequency is communicated to
one end of a wire which is open at the other (that is, not in a
closed circuit) and sufficiently short so that the waves have not
completely radiated their energy before reaching the end of the
wire. The waves will then be reflected back along the wire, and the
energy of the reflected waves tends to unite with that of the
oncoming waves of the same periodicity so as to produce standing
waves along the wire. As the velocity of the radio wave in space is
approximately that of the current waves in the wire, the number of
complete standing waves on the wire is always exactly the same as
the length of the wire divided by the wavelength. When the length
of the wire is a multiple of half-wavelengths, the oncoming and
reflected waves, traveling at the same velocity, occur
simultaneously, differing in this respect from the waves in a wire
of a length intermediate a multiple of half-wavelengths, and with
different effects upon the resulting radio energy, presently to be
noted.
When oscillating current is so related to the length of wire
that the energy of the former is exhausted by radiation before or
when the waves reach the end of the wire, there is no reflection of
the waves, and they travel in one direction only toward the open
end of the wire. They are denominated "traveling waves." In
professional parlance, wires producing reflected, and hence
"standing," waves are electrically of finite length. Those of
sufficient length to avoid reflection, and thus carry waves flowing
in only one direction, are said to be electrically of infinite
length.
[
Footnote 2]
The specifications state:
"By considering a long wire the equivalent of a very large
number of very short (Hertz) oscillators and by adding up the field
components at any point P having a direction angle relative to the
axis of the wire, where the point P is a great distance from the
wire as compared to the length of the wire such that all lines from
point P to any point on the wire are essentially parallel, it can
be shown that the field strength H is given by the following
proportionality for a conductor an odd number of half-wavelengths
long:"
cos(
n �/2 cos �)
Ha-----------------------
sin �
"The letter '
n' indicates the number of
half-wavelengths contained in the wire."
"For a wire an even number of half-wavelengths long, in similar
fashion, the field strength 'H' is given by the following
proportionality:"
sin(
n �/2 cos �)
Ha-----------------------
sin �
"Where
n, as above, indicates the number of
half-wavelengths on the wire."
[
Footnote 3]
"For practical purposes the empirical formula"
a = 50.9(
l/�)-0.513 degrees
"is sufficiently accurate where
l equals the length of
the wire and � the wavelength, both in the same units of
measurement."
[
Footnote 4]
"15. An antenna comprising a pair of relatively long conductors
disposed with respect to each other at an angle substantially equal
to twice"
50.9(
l/�)-0.513
degrees,
l being the length of the wire and �
the operating wavelength in like units, and means in circuit with
said antenna for exciting the conductors in phase opposition
whereby standing waves of opposite instantaneous polarity are
formed on the conductors throughout their length.
Claim 16 claims an antenna arranged in conformity to the
empirical formula, as in Claim 15, with "a similar parallel pair of
conductors spaced an odd number of quarter wavelengths away from
said first mentioned pair. . . ." These parallel wires constitute
the "reflector," which, as already noted, was old in the art.
[
Footnote 5]
"Still a further object of the present invention is to disclose
the proper angle for conductors or radiators either an even number
of half-wavelengths long or an odd number of half-wavelengths long,
and, in general, to disclose the angle for best directional
propagation for wires of any finite length."
After the present suit was brought, this paragraph was amended
to read:
"Another object of the invention is to disclose the angle for
the best directional propagation for open-ended wires of any finite
length, preferably longer than the operating wavelength, having
standing waves thereon and arranged in the manner proposed."
[
Footnote 6]
"Moreover, it should be clearly understood that the wires of
each unit can be of any length whatsoever, provided they are placed
at the correct angle for their length. For best tuning, the total
overall length of both of the wires and the 'U' loop terminating
them should be effectively an integral number of half-wavelengths,
but the portion forming the radiation element can be of any length.
The law giving the correct angle for lengths between odd and even
number of half-wavelengths is not given, due to its complexity, but
the empirical formula and the curve of figure 12 will be found
accurate for all practical purposes where the length of wire dealt
with does not correspond to a whole number of
half-wavelengths."
[
Footnote 7]
See note 1
supra.
[
Footnote 8]
See note 5
supra.
[
Footnote 9]
See note 5
supra.
[
Footnote 10]
See note 1
supra.