Historedia
Episode 1 of 3

Competing Patent Filings

When
February 14 - March 3, 1876
Where
Patent Office
Part of
Bell patents the telephone and makes the first successful call

Bell and Gray filed competing patent documents in Washington, D.C., on February 14, 1876, regarding the telephone.

Gray signed and notarized a caveat describing a telephone using a liquid transmitter. Bell's lawyer learned of Gray's idea before filing. Bell had previously filed a mercury application in February 1875. Gray abandoned his caveat, allowing the examiner to approve Bell's patent on March 3, 1876.

Sources

  1. Elisha Gray Wikipedia, revision of 2026-07-16
  2. Alexander Graham Bell Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-08

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.