The Bell Versus Gray Telephone Dispute: Resolving a 144-Year-Old Controversy [Scanning Our Past

Abstract

On March 7, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was granted U.S. Patent No. 174,465 for the speaking telegraph, or telephone, one of the most valuable patents in history. Attorneys for Bell and Elisha Gray had submitted their respective ideas for the telephone to the U.S. Patent Office three weeks earlier, incredibly, on the same day, “Valentine’s Day, February 14.” (The year 1876 should be assumed hereafter unless otherwise designated.) Gray was a successful inventor and cofounder of Western Electric Manufacturing Company, whereas Bell was a part-time inventor, a part-time private speech teacher for the deaf, and a teacher of elocution at Boston University. Bell’s submission was a full patent application, however Gray’s was a caveat, a document designed to protect an idea for one year, with a full application required within that time. If filed before a competing patent application, a caveat could lead to an expensive and prolonged Patent Office interference hearing to determine which inventor conceived of the idea first. Although both submissions contained similar descriptions of a liquid telephone transmitter (an early microphone), the Patent Office ruled that Bell’s attorneys had filed a few hours before Gray’s on February 14, and hence the patent was granted to Bell.