Until recently, Bell was widely recognized as the "inventor" of the telephone, outside of Italy, where Meucci was championed as its inventor. In
the United States, there are numerous reflections of Bell as a North American icon for inventing the telephone, and the matter was for a long
time noncontroversial. In 2002, however, the United States House of Representatives passed a symbolic bill conferring official recognition for
the invention of the telephone to Meucci, throwing the matter into heated controversy. Later that year, the Parliament of Canada countered
with a symbolic bill conferring official recognition for the invention of the telephone to Bell.
Champions of Meucci, of Manzetti, and of Gray have each offered fairly precise tales of a contrivance whereby Bell actively stole the
invention of the telephone from their specific inventor. It is noted that Bell worked in a laboratory in which Meucci's materials had
earlier been stored, and claimed that Bell must thus have had access to those materials. Manzetti claimed that Bell visited him and
examined his device in 1865. And it is alleged that Bell bribed a patent examiner, Zenas Wilber, not only into processing his application
before Gray's, but allowing a look at his rival's designs before final submission. Each such claim of theft, however, remains unproven,
and if Bell had stolen from any one of these men then he would have had little cause to steal the very same idea from the other two.
One of the valuable claims in Bell's 1876 patent US 174,465 was claim 4, a method of producing variable electrical current in a circuit by
varying the resistance in the circuit. That feature was not shown in any of Bell's patent drawings, but was shown in Elisha Gray's
drawings in his caveat filed the same day 14 February 1876. A description of the variable resistance feature, consisting of 7 sentences,
was inserted into Bell's application. That it was inserted is not disputed. But when it was inserted is a controversial issue. Bell
testified that he wrote the sentences containing the variable resistance feature before January 18, 1876 "almost at the last moment"
before sending his draft application to his lawyers. A book by Evenson argues that the 7 sentences and claim 4 were inserted, without
Bell's knowledge, just before Bell's application was hand carried to the Patent Office by one of Bell's lawyers on 14 February 1876.
Contrary to the popular story, Gray's caveat was taken to the US Patent Office a few hours before Bell's application. Gray's caveat was
taken to the Patent Office in the morning of 14 February shortly after the Patent Office opened and remained near the bottom of the
in-basket until that afternoon. Bell's application was filed shortly before noon on 14 February 1876 by Bell's lawyer who requested
that the filing fee be entered immediately onto the cash receipts blotter and Bell's application was taken to the Examiner immediately.
Late in the afternoon, Gray's caveat was entered on the cash blotter and was not taken to the Examiner until the following day. The
fact that Bell's filing fee was recorded earlier than Gray's led to the myth that Bell had arrived at the Patent Office earlier.
Bell was in Boston on February 14 and did not know this was happening until later. Whether Gray filed before or after Bell no longer
mattered after Gray abandoned his caveat and that opened the door to Bell being granted US patent 174,465 for the telephone on 7 March 1876.
Elisha Gray and Alexander Bell telephone controversy:
The Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell controversy considers the question of whether Bell or Gray invented the telephone independently and,
if not, whether one stole the invention from the other. This controversy is more narrow than the broader question of who deserves credit for
inventing the telephone, for which there are several claimants.
Bell's interests versus Gray's interests:
Bell supporters cite numerous lawsuits in which the courts decided in favor of Bell and the telephone company he founded. Gray supporters cite
the fact that Bell's first successful experiment in transmitting clear speech over a wire was on March 10, 1876 using the same transmitter
design described in Gray's caveat but not described in Bell's patent. There is a third side to this controversy, expressed in detail in a
book by Evenson, which concludes that it was Bell's lawyers, not Bell, who misappropriated Gray's invention.
Who got to the patent office first?:
Bell's patent application for the telephone was filed in the US patent office on February 14, 1876. The usual story says that Bell got to the
patent office an hour or two before his rival Elisha Gray, and that Gray lost his rights to the telephone as a result. But that is not
what happened according to Evenson.
According to Gray's account, his patent caveat was taken to the US patent office a few hours before Bell's application, shortly after the
patent office opened and remained near the bottom of the in-basket until that afternoon. Bell's application was filed shortly before noon
on 14 February by Bell's lawyer who requested that the filing fee be entered immediately onto the cash receipts blotter and that Bell's
application be taken to the examiner immediately. Late that afternoon, the fee for Gray's caveat was entered on the cash blotter and
the caveat was not taken to the examiner until the following day. The fact that Bell's filing fee was recorded earlier than Gray's fee led
to the story that Bell had arrived at the patent office earlier. Bell was in Boston on February 14 and did not know this was happening
until he arrived in Washington on February 26. Whether Bell's application was filed before or after Gray's caveat no longer mattered,
because Gray abandoned his caveat, which opened the door to Bell being granted U.S. Patent 174,465 for the telephone on 7 March 1876.
Conspiracy theories:
Several conspiracy theories were presented during trials and appeals (1878-1888) in which the Bell Telephone Company sued competitors
and later when Bell and his lawyers were accused of patent fraud. These theories were based on alleged corruption of the patent
examiner Zenas Wilber who was an alcoholic. Wilber was accused of revealing secret information to Alexander Graham Bell and Bell's
patent attorneys Anthony Pollok and Marcellus Bailey from patent applications and caveats of Bell's competitor Elisha Gray. One of
the accusers was attorney Lysander Hill who charged that Bell's attorneys, Pollok and Bailey, had received this secret information
from Wilber and that Wilber allowed Bell's attorney to insert a paragraph of seven sentences, based on this secret information, into
Bell's patent application after both Gray's caveat and Bell's patent application had been filed in the patent office. However, Bell's
original patent application shows no sign of alteration and Wilber declared an interference based on those seven sentences. Wilber
noticed that the seven sentences contained subject matter very similar to the ideas expressed in Gray's caveat and declared an
interference between Bell's application and the caveat which he would not have done if the seven sentences had not been there. The
seven sentences were in the original patent application as filed on February 14, 1876. The conspiracy theories were rejected by the courts.
One of the valuable claims in Bell's 1876 US patent 174,465 was Claim 4, a method of producing variable electrical current in a circuit by
varying the resistance in the circuit. That feature was not shown in any of Bell's patent drawings, but was shown in Elisha Gray's
drawings in his caveat filed the same day. A description of the variable resistance feature, consisting of the seven sentences, was
inserted into a draft of Bell's application. That the seven sentences were inserted in Bell's draft is not disputed. Bell testified
that he inserted the seven sentences "almost at the last moment before sending it off to Washington to be engrossed." He said the engrossed
application (also called the "fair copy") was returned to him from his lawyers on January 18, 1876 and that he signed it and had it
notarized in Boston on January 20. But this statement by Bell is disputed by Evenson, who argues that the seven sentences and Claim
4 were inserted into Bell's patent application without Bell's knowledge on February 13 or 14, just before Bell's application was hand
carried to the Patent Office by one of Bell's lawyers.
Role of Gray's attorney:
Evenson argues that it was not Wilber who leaked Gray's ideas to Bell's attorney after Gray's caveat was filed with the patent office,
but somebody in the office of Gray's attorney, William D. Baldwin, and perhaps Baldwin himself, who leaked the variable resistance
idea and the water transmitter idea to Bell's attorney before Gray's caveat and Bell's application were filed. It was Baldwin who
advised Gray to abandon his caveat and not turn it into a patent application, because, Baldwin said, Bell had invented the telephone
before Gray and Bell's application was notarized before Gray began his caveat. Baldwin urged Gray to write a letter to Bell
congratulating him on his new telephone invention and "I do not claim even the credit of inventing it...”. Baldwin also failed to
represent Gray's interests in the Dowd case. Baldwin was on the payroll of the Bell Telephone Company at the same time he was
representing Gray in a patent office action involving the Bell company. Gray did not tell anybody about his new invention
for transmitting voice sounds until Friday, February 11, 1876 when Gray requested that Baldwin prepare a caveat for filing. Sometime
on the weekend of February 12–13, Bell's lawyers learned of Gray's caveat. They then rushed to get Bell's application filed on Monday
before Gray's caveat, or to make it appear that Bell's application was filed first.
There were several versions of Bell's application:
- version E: draft consisting of 10 pages that Bell gave to George Brown for filing in England.
- version F: draft consisting of 10 pages sent by Bell to Pollok & Bailey in early January 1876.
- version X: engrossed "fair copy" signed by Bell and notarized on January 20, 1876 (presumably 14 pages)
- version G: final application consisting of 15 pages filed in the US Patent Office on February 14, 1876. After minor amendments were made,
this version G was issued as a patent on March 7, 1876.
Versions E and F are almost identical except for minor changes and the seven sentence insertion that now appears in the margin of
version F, page 6. The question is when was this insertion made. Evenson argues that the seven sentences were not in version E or F when
Bell sent version F to Pollok in early January 1876. Pollok rewrote the claims on page 10 of version F and his clerk copied version F
into an engrossed "fair copy" (version X) which Pollok sent to Bell. On January 20, Bell signed the last page of version X, had it notarized
on the last page, and returned it to Pollok with instructions to hold it until Bell received a message from George Brown. There was probably
no page number on the notarized page when it was notarized. Both the draft version F and the notarized version X remained in Pollok's file box.
Valentine's Day:
According to Evenson, early on Monday, February 14, after learning of the variable resistance feature from Gray's lawyer, Pollok or Bailey inserted
the seven sentences into version X, revised the claims, made other minor revisions, and had the clerk prepare a new engrossed fair copy, version
G which consists of 14 pages, not including a signature page. Pollok or Bailey removed the unnumbered notarized signature page from version X
and attached it to version G, wrote page number "15" at the bottom of the notarized page, and hand carried the application to the patent
office before noon on February 14. The page number 15 on the notarized page is more than twice as large as page numbers on pages 10
through 14. The inserted seven sentences are at the top of page 9 and the page number 9 is twice as large as page numbers on pages 10
through 14. Evenson does not speculate about what Pollok did with the pages of version X that were replaced by version G. Version F still
lacked the seven sentence insertion. When Bell arrived in Washington on February 26, 1876, Pollok apparently requested that Bell write the
seven sentences and other changes onto version F in Bell's handwriting, thereby creating a draft containing the variable resistance feature
that Bell could later testify was made before January 18, 1876 "almost at the last moment" before sending version F to his lawyers.
Did Bell steal the invention from Gray?:
There was no "smoking gun" that proved that Bell had illegally acquired knowledge of Gray's invention from examiner Wilber. But the paper trail
left by various drafts of Bell's patent application is evidence that his lawyers may have acquired the basic ideas of Gray's liquid transmitter
which Bell then used successfully to transmit "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you" on March 10, 1876. Gray wrote to Bell saying: "I was
unfortunate in being an hour or two behind you." There is no evidence that either knew that the other was working in this direction.
Gray changed his opinion after learning facts from the trials. Gray wrote that his caveat was filed first: "Whatever evidence there is, is in
favor of the caveat having been filed first." In commenting on letters Gray and Bell wrote to each other before the trials, Gray wrote "Two
or three letters passed and in one of them I told him of the caveat. In his [Bell's] answer he said: 'I do not know about your caveat, except
that it had something to do with a wire vibrating in water', or words to that effect. "Vibrating in water" was the whole thing. How would he
know that much?" About his caveat, Gray wrote "I showed Bell how to make the telephone. He could not mistake it, because the drawings
were explicit, as well as the specifications."
Although Bell was accused, and is still accused, of stealing the telephone from Gray, Bell used Gray's water transmitter design only as a
proof of concept scientific experiment to prove to his own satisfaction that intelligible "articulate speech" (Bell's words) could be
electrically transmitted. After March 1876, Bell focused on improving the electromagnetic telephone and never used Gray's liquid
transmitter in public demonstrations or commercial use.
History of the Telephone
History of the Telephone Controversy Debate and Patents
Patents:
- U.S. Patent 161,739 -- Transmitter and Receiver for Electric Telegraphs (tuned steel reeds) -- Alexander Graham Bell (April 6, 1875)
- U.S. Patent 174,465 -- Telegraphy (Bell's first telephone patent) -- Alexander Graham Bell (March 7, 1876)
- U.S. Patent 178,399 -- Telephonic Telegraphic Receiver (vibrating reed) -- Alexander Graham Bell (June 6, 1876)
- U.S. Patent 181,553 -- Generating Electric Currents (magneto) -- Alexander Graham Bell (August 29, 1876)
- U.S. Patent 186,787 -- Electric Telegraphy (permanent magnet receiver) -- Alexander Graham Bell (January 15, 1877)
- U.S. Patent 201,488 -- Speaking Telephone (receiver designs) -- Alexander Graham Bell (March 19, 1878)
- U.S. Patent 213,090 -- Electric Speaking Telephone (frictional transmitter) -- Alexander Graham Bell (March 11, 1879)
- U.S. Patent 220,791 -- Telephone Circuit (twisted pairs of wire) -- Alexander Graham Bell (October 21, 1879)
- U.S. Patent 228,507 -- Electric Telephone Transmitter (hollow ball transmitter) -- Alexander Graham Bell (June 8, 1880)
- U.S. Patent 230,168 -- Circuit for Telephone -- Alexander Graham Bell (July 20, 1880)
- U.S. Patent 238,833 -- Electric Call-Bell -- Alexander Graham Bell (March 15, 1881)
- U.S. Patent 241,184 -- Telephonic Receiver (local battery circuit with coil) -- Alexander Graham Bell (May 10, 1881)
- U.S. Patent 244,426 -- Telephone Circuit (cable of twisted pairs) -- Alexander Graham Bell (July 19, 1881)
- U.S. Patent 252,576 -- Multiple Switch Board for Telephone Exchanges -- Leroy Firman (Western Electric) (January 17, 1882)
- U.S. Patent 474,230 -- Speaking Telegraph (graphite transmitter) -- Thomas Edison
- U.S. Patent 203,016 -- Speaking Telephone (carbon button transmitter) -- Thomas Edison
- U.S. Patent 222,390 -- Carbon Telephone (carbon granules transmitter) -- Thomas Edison
- U.S. Patent 485,311 -- Telephone (solid back carbon transmitter) -- Anthony C. White (Bell engineer)
- U.S. Patent 597,062 -- Calling Device for Telephone Exchange (dial) -- A. E. Keith (11 January 1898)
- U.S. Patent 3,449,750 -- Duplex Radio Communication and Signalling Appartus -- G. H. Sweigert
- U.S. Patent 3,663,762 -- Cellular Mobile Communication System -- Amos Edward Joel (Bell Labs)
- U.S. Patent 3,906,166 -- Radio Telephone System (DynaTAC cell phone) -- Martin Cooper et al. (Motorola)
Source References:
- Meucci Story
- Basilio Catania's reconstruction, in English
- Picture of the acustic telephone, page maintained by the Italian Society of Electrotechnics
- Meucci's original drawings. Page maintained by the Italian Society of Electrotechnics
- Meucci's original drawings. Page maintained by the Italian Society of Electrotechnics
- Coe, page 21.
- BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Bell 'did not invent telephone'
- American Treasures of the Library of Congress ... Bell - Lab notebook
- Shulman, pages 36-37. Bell's lab notes dated March 9, 1876 show a drawing of a person speaking face down into a liquid transmitter very similar to the liquid transmitter depicted as Fig. 3 in Gray's caveat.
- Evenson, A. Edward (2000), The Telephone Patent Conspiracy of 1876: The Elisha Gray - Alexander Bell Controversy, McFarland, North Carolina, 2000. ISBN 0-7864-0883-9
- Baker, Burton H. (2000), The Gray Matter: The Forgotten Story of the Telephone, Telepress, St. Joseph, MI, 2000. ISBN 0-615-11329-X
- Shulman, Seth (2008), The Telephone Gambit, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2008. ISBN 978-0-393-06206-9
- Rothman, Tony (2003), Everything's Relative, Wiley, 2003. ISBN 0-471-20257-6
- The Telephone Gambit by Seth Shulman
- The Telephone Patent Conspiracy of 1876 by A. Edward Evenson
- Rothman, page 144
- Evenson, pages 64-69, 75, 77, 78, 86-87, 110, 182-185, 194-196
- This draft with the insertion can be seen on pages 70 and A76 in The Gray Matter
- The Gray Matter, page 49, 117, A60-A63, A71-A81, A100-A114
- The Gray Matter, "a third version that was never located ... conforming to version F had vanished" (and was not filed in the Patent Office), page 120
- Evenson, page 98, 99, 100, 105, 195, 218, 219
- The telephone Gambit, by Seth Shulman (2008), page 211.
- Wikipedia.org, the free encyclopedia
