Crucial 1887 Trial Evidence Establishes Italy's Antonio Meucci As Inventor of The Telephone.

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 10, 2000

Details to be presented by Professor Basilio Catania at 7PM

tonight at New York University 

The former head of Italy's Central Telephone Research Laboratories said newly-discovered evidence on file at the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, DC confirms that Antonio Meucci is the rightful inventor of the telephone.

Up to now, it has been generally held that Alexander Graham Bell, the telephony icon in every American kid's science book, was the person to whom the communications world owed its deepest gratitude.

Professor Basilio Catania, recipient of the 1988 Eurotelecom and 1991 Marconi Prizes, said the new truths about the invention's ownership are contained in the record of an 1887 trial ordered by the US Government (United States v Bell Telephone Company (now AT&T NYSE:T) and Alexander Graham Bell) to strip Bell of his patents for fraud and misrepresentation.

The Bell Company's dilatory tactics stalled the trial for years, going beyond Meucci's death in 1889 and the expiration of Bell's patents in 1894. The underlying issue of who was entitled to the patents thus became legally moot and the trial was discontinued.

Full Presentation Tonight

Professor Catania will detail the compelling pieces of evidence discovered during the first modern-day review of the trial's record at a special presentation tonight at New York University.

"The data will end any remaining doubt that Meucci is in fact the telephone's inventor," said Professor Catania, a resident of Turin, Italy who has devoted the last 12 years to unearthing the legal and scientific proofs about the invention of the telephone.

According to Professor Catania, the trial record contains 50 affidavits and the exhibition of two dozen of Meucci's telephone models. One of the affidavits was the translation into English of Meucci's Memorandum Book where he had jotted down his notes on his various experiments on the telephone, as far back as 1862.

"A drawing in this affidavit unmistakably shows that Meucci had discovered the inductive loading of long distance telephone lines at least 30 years before the Bell Company," informs Professor Catania.

Following that startling disclosure, other "firsts" to be credited to Meucci were uncovered: the first call signaling system, the first anti-side tone circuit, the first measures to optimize the structure of telephone lines and to insure quietness of the environment.

According to Professor Catania, none of this evidence was available during an 1885 trial instituted against Meucci by Bell for patent infringement, the conclusion of which had heretofore been the major focus of the debate.

Professor Catania will present full details of his conclusions and evidence at 7:00 pm October 10, 2000 at New York University's Casa Italiana, 24 West 12th Street, New York, NY.