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Career

After some time working in a livery stable, Berliner became interested in the new audio technology of the telephone and phonograph. He invented an improved telephone transmitter, one of the first types of microphones. The patent was acquired by the Bell Telephone Company (see The Telephone Cases), but contested, in a long legal battle, by Thomas Edison. On February 27, 1901, the United States Court of Appeals would declare Berliner's patent void and awarded Edison full rights to the invention. "Edison preceded Berliner in the transmission of speech," the court would write. "The use of carbon in a transmitter is, beyond controversy, the invention of Edison".

Berliner moved to Boston in 1877, where he became a United States citizen four years later. He worked for Bell Telephone until 1883, when he returned to Washington and established himself as a private researcher.