Michael Esposito (paranormal investigator)
Michael Andrew Esposito was born in Gary, Indiana in 1964. He is a descendant of Alfred Vail who invented the Morse Code and several early telegraph devices with his partner Samuel Morse. The invention of the telegraph sparked the spiritualist movement of the middle 1800s and the telegraph was used in spirit communication. Another ancestor, Jonathan Harned Vail was office manager and assistant to Thomas Edison. Edison, in his later years attempted to develop a device for communicating with the dead. Michael studied communication theory at Purdue University, University of Notre Dame, American University in Cairo, Egypt and Governor's State University. During the Gulf War Michael was a Psy-ops officer in Iraq.
O'Reilly v. Morse
While the case concerned a number of other issues, such as whether Morse was indeed first to invent the telegraph, the issue of lasting importance concerned Morse's eighth claim, which was directed to a method of communicating intelligible information to any distance by means of exploiting the electro-magnetic force:
Eighth. I do not propose to limit myself to the specific machinery or parts of machinery described in the foregoing specification and claims; the essence of my invention being the use of the motive power of the electric or galvanic current, which I call electro-magnetism, however developed for marking or printing intelligible characters, signs, or letters, at any distances, being a new application of that power of which I claim to be the first inventor or discoverer.
As Justice Taney, speaking for the majority of the Court, explained it, "He claims the exclusive right to every improvement where the motive power is the electric or galvanic current, and the result is the marking or printing intelligible characters, signs, or letters at a distance." Although "it required the highest order of mechanical skill to execute and adjust the nice and delicate work necessary to put the telegraph into operation," Morse did not "invent" what he claimed: "Professor Morse has not discovered that the electric or galvanic current will always print at a distance, no matter what may be the form of the machinery or mechanical contrivances through which it passes." Morse did not enable others to do more than make the repeater system that he described. Other persons may discover and disclose to the public other ways to use electromagnetic force to transmit messages, and the other ways may be cheaper or work better. "In fine, he claims an exclusive right to use a manner and process which he has not described and indeed had not invented, and therefore could not describe when he obtained his patent. The court is of opinion that the claim is too broad, and not warranted by law."