Editing Alexander Graham Bell (section)

==The telephone==
<!----Please note:
The question of authorship or claims to the invention of the telephone is discussed in the sub-article Invention of the Telephone. Although there remain disputes between various parties that were eventually resolved in litigation, this still remains a contentious issue. Before introducing any further controversial issues related to the invention of the telephone, please discuss on the talk page.
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{{external media | width = 210px | float = right | audio1 = [https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1752176982 Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson], 26:57, [[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation|CBC Archives]]<ref name="CBC archives">{{cite web | title =Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson | publisher =[[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation|CBC]] | date = July 25, 1975 | url = https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1752176982 | access-date =February 7, 2023 }}</ref> }}
{{Main|Invention of the telephone}}
By 1874, Bell's initial work on the harmonic telegraph had entered a formative stage, with progress made both at his new Boston "laboratory" (a rented facility) and at his family home in Canada a big success.{{refn| From {{harvp|''Alexander Graham Bell''|1979|p=8}}: "Brantford is justified in calling herself 'The Telephone City' because the telephone originated there. It was invented in Brantford at Tutela Heights in the summer of 1874."|group=N}} While working that summer in Brantford, Bell experimented with a "[[phonautograph]]", a pen-like machine that could draw shapes of sound waves on smoked glass by tracing their vibrations. Bell thought it might be possible to generate undulating electrical currents that corresponded to sound waves.<ref>{{cite book |last=Matthews |first=Tom L. |title=Always Inventing: A Photobiography of Alexander Graham Bell |location=Washington, D.C. |publisher=National Geographic Society |date=1999 |pages=19–21 |isbn=978-0-7922-7391-2 }}</ref> He also thought that multiple metal reeds tuned to different frequencies like a harp would be able to convert the undulating currents back into sound. But he had no working model to demonstrate the feasibility of these ideas.{{sfn|Matthews|1999|p=21}}

In 1874, telegraph message traffic was rapidly expanding and, in the words of [[Western Union]] President [[William Orton (businessman)|William Orton]], had become "the nervous system of commerce". Orton had contracted with inventors [[Thomas Edison]] and [[Elisha Gray]] to find a way to send multiple telegraph messages on each telegraph line to avoid the great cost of constructing new lines.<ref>{{cite journal|first1=Blaine |last1=McCormick |first2=Paul |last2=Israel |url=http://ieee.cincinnati.fuse.net/reiman/03_2005.htm |title=Underrated entrepreneur: Thomas Edison's overlooked business story |journal=IEEE Power & Energy Magazine |volume=3 |issue=1 |pages=76–79 |date=January–February 2005 |doi=10.1109/MPAE.2005.1380243 |s2cid=19680450 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091223075458/http://ieee.cincinnati.fuse.net/reiman/03_2005.htm |archive-date=December 23, 2009 | issn=1540-7977 }}</ref> When Bell mentioned to Gardiner Hubbard and Thomas Sanders that he was working on a method of sending multiple tones on a telegraph wire using a multi-reed device, the two began to financially support Bell's experiments.{{sfn|Town|1988|p=17}} Patent matters were handled by Hubbard's [[patent attorney]], [[Anthony Pollok]].{{sfn|Evenson|2000|pages=18–25}}

In March 1875, Bell and Pollok visited the scientist [[Joseph Henry]], then the director of the [[Smithsonian Institution]], to ask his advice on the electrical multi-reed apparatus that Bell hoped would transmit the human voice by telegraph. Henry said Bell had "the germ of a great invention". When Bell said that he lacked the necessary knowledge, Henry replied, "Get it!" That declaration greatly encouraged Bell to keep trying, even though he had neither the equipment needed to continue his experiments nor the ability to create a working model of his ideas. But a chance meeting in 1874 between Bell and [[Thomas A. Watson]], an experienced electrical designer and mechanic at the electrical machine shop of Charles Williams, changed that.

With financial support from Sanders and Hubbard, Bell hired Watson as his assistant,{{refn| Hubbard's financial support to the research efforts fell far short of the funds needed, necessitating Bell to continue teaching while conducting his experiments.<ref>{{cite news |last=Fitzgerald |first=Brian |url=http://www.bu.edu/bridge/archive/2001/09-14/bell.html |title=Alexander Graham Bell: The BU Years |newspaper=B.U. Bridge |publisher=Boston University |volume=V |issue=5 |date=September 14, 2001 |access-date=March 28, 2010}}</ref> Bell was so short of funds at times that he had to borrow money from his own employee, [[Thomas A. Watson|Thomas Watson]]. Bell also sought an additional CAD$150 from the former [[Premier (Canada)|Premier of Canada]], [[George Brown (Canadian politician)|George Brown]], in exchange for 50% of the patent rights in the British Empire (Brown later retracted his offer to patent the telephone in the U.K. for fear of being ridiculed). The [[Bell Telephone Company#Predecessor to the Bell Company|Bell Patent Association]], composed of Hubbard, Sanders and Bell and which would become the precursor of the Bell Telephone Company (and later, [[AT&T Corporation|AT&T]]), would later assign an approximate 10% interest of its shares to Watson,{{sfn|Bruce|1990|p=291}} in lieu of salary and for his earlier financial support to Bell while they worked together creating their first functional telephone.|group=N}} and the two experimented with [[acoustic telegraphy]]. On June 2, 1875, Watson accidentally plucked one of the reeds and Bell, at the receiving end of the wire, heard the reed's overtones that would be necessary for transmitting speech. That demonstrated to Bell that only one reed or armature was necessary, not multiple reeds. This led to the "gallows" [[sound-powered telephone]], which could transmit indistinct, voice-like sounds, but not clear speech.

===The race to the patent office===
{{Main|Elisha Gray and Alexander Bell telephone controversy}}
In 1875, Bell developed an [[Acoustic Telegraph|acoustic telegraph]] and drew up a [[patent application]] for it. Since he had agreed to share U.S. profits with his investors Gardiner Hubbard and Thomas Sanders, Bell requested that an associate in Ontario, [[George Brown (Canadian politician)|George Brown]], attempt to patent it in Britain, instructing his lawyers to apply for a patent in the U.S. only after they received word from Britain (Britain issued patents only for discoveries not previously patented elsewhere).{{sfn|Bruce|1990|pp=158–159}}

<!--not in the right article- belongs in the Gray and Bell controversy---NPOV involved--[[File:Bell-gray-smoking-gun.png|thumb|Excerpts from Elisha Gray's patent caveat of February 14 and Alexander Graham Bell's lab notebook entry of March 8, note their similarity]]--->
[[File:TelephonePatentDrawingBell.jpg|thumb|Alexander Graham Bell's telephone patent<ref>{{Patent|US|174465|Alexander Graham Bell: "Improvement in Telegraphy" filed on February 14, 1876, granted on March 7, 1876.}}</ref> drawing, March 7, 1876]]

Meanwhile, [[Elisha Gray]] was also experimenting with acoustic telegraphy and thought of a way to transmit speech using a water transmitter. On February 14, 1876, Gray filed a [[Patent caveat|caveat]] with the U.S. Patent Office for a telephone design that used a water transmitter. That same morning, Bell's lawyer filed Bell's application with the patent office. There is considerable debate about who arrived first and Gray later challenged the primacy of Bell's patent. Bell was in Boston on February 14 and did not arrive in Washington until February 26.

On March 7, 1876, the [[United States Patent and Trademark Office|U.S. Patent Office]] issued Bell patent 174,465. It covered "the method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically ... by causing electrical undulations, similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sound"{{Sfn|MacLeod|1999|pp=12–13}}{{refn|A copy of a draft of the patent application is shown, described as "probably the most valuable patent ever."|group=N}} Bell returned to Boston that day and the next day resumed work, drawing in his notebook a diagram similar to that in Gray's patent caveat.{{citation needed|date=July 2022}}

On March 10, Bell succeeded in getting his telephone to work, using a liquid transmitter similar to Gray's design. Vibration of the diaphragm caused a needle to vibrate in the water, varying the [[electrical resistance]] in the circuit. When Bell spoke the sentence "Mr. Watson—Come here—I want to see you" into the liquid transmitter,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://quotegrab.com/telephones/mr-watson-come-here |title=Alexander Graham Bell – Lab notebook pp. 40–41 (image 22) |website=Quotegrab |publisher=IAP Quotegrab |access-date=September 17, 2019 |date=August 2, 2019 |archive-date=May 14, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200514084103/https://quotegrab.com/telephones/mr-watson-come-here/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> Watson, listening at the receiving end in an adjoining room, heard the words clearly.{{Sfn|MacLeod|1999|p=12}}

Although Bell was, and still is, accused of stealing the telephone from Gray,{{sfn|Shulman|2008|p=211}} Bell used Gray's water transmitter design only after Bell's patent had been granted, and only as a [[proof of concept]] scientific experiment,{{sfn|Evenson|2000|p=99}} to prove to his own satisfaction that intelligible "articulate speech" (Bell's words) could be electrically transmitted.{{sfn|Evenson|2000|p=98}} After March 1876, Bell focused on improving the electromagnetic telephone and never used Gray's liquid transmitter in public demonstrations or commercial use.{{sfn|Evenson|2000|p=100}}

The examiner raised the question of priority for the variable resistance feature of the telephone before approving Bell's patent application. He told Bell that his claim for the variable resistance feature was also described in Gray's caveat. Bell pointed to a variable resistance device in his previous application in which he described a cup of mercury, not water. He had filed the mercury application at the patent office on February 25, 1875, long before Gray described the water device. In addition, Gray abandoned his caveat, and because he did not contest Bell's priority, the examiner approved Bell's patent on March 3, 1876. Gray had reinvented the variable resistance telephone, but Bell was the first to write down the idea and test it in a telephone.{{sfn|Evenson|2000|pp=81–82}}

The [[Patent clerk|patent examiner]], Zenas Fisk Wilber, later stated in an [[affidavit]] that he was an alcoholic who was much in debt to Bell's lawyer, [[Marcellus Bailey]], with whom he had served in the Civil War. He said he had shown Bailey Gray's patent caveat. Wilber also said (after Bell arrived in Washington D.C. from Boston) that he showed Bell Gray's caveat and that Bell paid him $100 ({{Inflation|US|100|1875|r=-2|fmt=eq}}). Bell said they discussed the patent only in general terms, although in a letter to Gray, Bell admitted that he learned some of the technical details. Bell denied in an affidavit that he ever gave Wilber any money.<ref>{{cite news | newspaper=The Washington Post |title=Mr. Wilbur "confesses"|date= May 22, 1886|page=1|url=http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Mr._Wilber_Confesses}}</ref>

===Later developments===
[[File:Actor portraying Alexander Graham Bell in an AT&T promotional film (1926).jpg|thumb|An actor playing Bell in a 1926 film holds Bell's first [[microphone|telephone transmitter]]]]
On March 10, 1876, Bell used "the instrument" in Boston to call Thomas Watson who was in another room but out of earshot. He said, "Mr. Watson, come here – I want to see you" and Watson soon appeared at his side.<ref>{{cite book |last=Evenson |first=A Edward |date=November 10, 2000 |title=The Telephone Patent Conspiracy of 1876: The Elisha Gray-Alexander Bell Controversy and Its Many Players |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KiJJ7Bp-xtcC&q=Mr.+Watson+%E2%80%94+Come+here+%E2%80%94+I+want+to+see+you&pg=PA99 |publisher=McFarland |page=99 |isbn=0786408839}}</ref>

Continuing his experiments in Brantford, Bell brought home a working model of his telephone. On August 3, 1876, from the telegraph office in Brantford, Bell sent a telegram to the village of Mount Pleasant {{convert|4|mi|0|abbr=off|spell=on}} away, indicating that he was ready. He made a telephone call via telegraph wires and faint voices were heard replying. The following night, he amazed guests as well as his family with a call between the Bell Homestead and the office of the Dominion Telegraph Company in Brantford along an improvised wire strung up along telegraph lines and fences, and laid through a tunnel. This time, guests at the household distinctly heard people in Brantford reading and singing. The third test, on August 10, 1876, was made via the telegraph line between Brantford and Paris, Ontario, {{convert|8|mi|0|abbr=off|spell=on}} away. This test is said by many sources to be the "world's first long-distance call".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.telecommunications.ca/alexander-graham-bell-invention-telephone.htm |title=Alexander Graham Bell 1847–1922 Inventor of the Bell System |publisher=Telecommunications Canada |access-date=January 14, 2020 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/dfhd/page_nhs_eng.aspx?id=1187 |title=Invention of the Telephone National Historic Event |publisher=Parks Canada |access-date=January 14, 2020 |quote=Bell made public demonstrations of his now patented invention, culminating in the world's first long distance call, to Paris, 13 kilometres away, on 10 August}}</ref> It proved that the telephone could work over long distances, at least as a one-way call.{{Sfn|MacLeod|1999|p=14}}

The first two-way (reciprocal) conversation over a line occurred between Cambridge and Boston (roughly 2.5 miles) on October 9, 1876.<ref>{{cite book|title=Popular Mechanics Aug 1912 |date = August 1912|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8t0DAAAAMBAJ&q=The+first+reciprocal+conversation+over+a+line+occurred+in+Boston+on+October+9,+1876.&pg=PA186 |location=New York |publisher=Popular Mechanics |page=186}}</ref> During that conversation, Bell was on Kilby Street in Boston and Watson was at the offices of the Walworth Manufacturing Company.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://cambridgehistory.org/innovation/First%20Phone%20Call.html|title=First Phone Call}}</ref>

[[File:Alexander Graham Telephone in Newyork.jpg|thumb|Bell at the opening of the long-distance line from New York to Chicago in 1892]]

Bell and his partners, Hubbard and Sanders, offered to sell the patent outright to Western Union for $100,000, equal to ${{Inflation|US|100000|1876|fmt=c}} today, but it did not work (according to an apocryphal story, the president of Western Union balked, countering that the telephone was nothing but a toy<ref>{{cite web |last1=Lapsley |first1=Phil |title=The Greatest "Bad Business Decision" Quotation That Never Was |url=https://blog.historyofphonephreaking.org/2011/01/the-greatest-bad-business-decision-quotation-that-never-was.html |website=The History of Phone Phreaking Blog |access-date=2 February 2024 |date=8 January 2011}}</ref>). Two years later, he told colleagues that if he could get the patent for $25 million (equal to ${{Inflation|US|25000000|1878|fmt=c}} today), he would consider it a bargain. By then, the Bell company no longer wanted to sell the patent.<ref>{{cite web |last=Fenster |first=Julie M. |title=Inventing the Telephone—And Triggering All-Out Patent War |website=American Heritage |url=http://www.americanheritage.com/events/articles/web/20060307-alexander-graham-bell-telephone-patent-telegraph-elisha-gray-thomas-watson-gardiner-hubbard-western-union-thomas-edison.shtml |date=March 7, 2006 |archive-date=March 11, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060311000120/http://www.americanheritage.com/events/articles/web/20060307-alexander-graham-bell-telephone-patent-telegraph-elisha-gray-thomas-watson-gardiner-hubbard-western-union-thomas-edison.shtml |access-date=September 19, 2015}}</ref> Bell's investors became millionaires while he fared well from residuals and at one point had assets of nearly $1 million.<ref>{{cite book |last=Winfield |first=Richard |title=Never the Twain Shall Meet: Bell, Gallaudet, and the Communications Debate |location=Washington, D.C. |publisher=Gallaudet University Press |date=1987 |page=21 |isbn=978-0-913580-99-8 }}</ref>

Bell began a series of public demonstrations and lectures to introduce the new invention to the [[scientific community]] as well as the general public. A short time later, [[Bell Telephone Company#Early promotional success|his demonstration of an early telephone prototype]] at the 1876 [[Centennial Exposition]] in [[Philadelphia]] brought the telephone to international attention.<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Webb |editor-first=Michael |title=Alexander Graham Bell: Inventor of the Telephone |location=Mississauga, Ontario |publisher=Copp Clark Pitman |date=1991 |page=[https://archive.org/details/alexandergrahamb0000webb/page/15 15] |isbn=978-0-7730-5049-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/alexandergrahamb0000webb/page/15 }}</ref> Influential visitors to the exhibition included Emperor [[Pedro II of Brazil]]. One of the judges at the Exhibition, [[William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin|Sir William Thomson]] (later Lord Kelvin), a renowned Scottish scientist, described the telephone as "the greatest by far of all the marvels of the electric telegraph".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20170407132609/http://www.ingenious.org.uk/See/Scienceandtechnology/Telecommunications/?target=SeeMedium&ObjectID={26E01AAD-9528-A037-3F8D-18F71C87E944}&s=S1&viewby=images& |title=Bell's centennial telephone transmitter, 1876 |publisher=National Archives UK |access-date=January 14, 2020 }}</ref>

On January 14, 1878, at [[Osborne House]], on the [[Isle of Wight]], Bell demonstrated the device to [[Queen Victoria]],<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.islandecho.co.uk/140-years-since-first-telephone-call-queen-victoria-isle-wight/ |title=140 Years Since the First Telephone Call to Queen Victoria on the Isle of Wight |date=January 14, 2018 |publisher=Island Echo |access-date=January 14, 2020 |quote=He made the UK's first publicly-witnessed long distance calls, calling Cowes, Southampton and London. Queen Victoria liked the telephone so much she wanted to buy it.}}</ref> placing calls to Cowes, Southampton, and London. These were the first publicly witnessed long-distance telephone calls in the [[UK]]. The queen found the process "quite extraordinary" although the sound was "rather faint".<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/connecting-britain/alexander-graham-bell-unveils-telephone/ |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/connecting-britain/alexander-graham-bell-unveils-telephone/ |archive-date=January 11, 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=Alexander Graham Bell demonstrates the newly invented telephone |date=January 13, 2017 |newspaper=The Telegraph |access-date=January 14, 2020 |quote=one of the Queen's staff wrote to Professor Bell to inform him "how much gratified and surprised the Queen was at the exhibition of the Telephone"}}{{cbignore}}</ref> She later asked to buy the equipment that was used, but Bell offered to make "a set of telephones" specifically for her.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/magbell.30000106/ |title=pdf, Letter from Alexander Graham Bell to Sir Thomas Biddulph, February 1, 1878 |publisher=Library of Congress |access-date=January 14, 2020 |quote="The instruments at present in Osborne are merely those supplied for ordinary commercial purposes, and it will afford me much pleasure to be permitted to offer to the Queen a set of Telephones to be made expressly for her Majesty's use."}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Ross |first=Stewart |title=Alexander Graham Bell |series=(Scientists who Made History) |location=New York |publisher=Raintree Steck-Vaughn |date=2001 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/alexandergrahamb00ross/page/21 21–22] |isbn=978-0-7398-4415-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/alexandergrahamb00ross/page/21}}</ref>

The [[Bell Telephone Company]] was created in 1877, and by 1886, more than 150,000 people in the U.S. owned telephones. Bell Company engineers made numerous other improvements to the telephone, which emerged as one of the most successful products ever. In 1879, the company acquired Edison's patents for the [[carbon microphone]] from Western Union. This made the telephone practical for longer distances, and it was no longer necessary to shout to be heard at the receiving telephone.{{citation needed|date=July 2022}}

Pedro II of Brazil was the first person to buy stock in the Bell Telephone Company. One of the first telephones in a private residence was installed in his palace in [[Petrópolis]], his summer retreat {{convert|40|mi|0|abbr=off|spell=on}} from [[Rio de Janeiro]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Dom Pedro II and America |website=The Library of Congress |url=https://memory.loc.gov/intldl/brhtml/br-1/br-1-5-2.html |access-date=March 7, 2018}}</ref>

In January 1915, Bell made the first ceremonial transcontinental [[telephone call]]. Calling from the AT&T head office at 15 Dey Street in New York City, Bell was heard by [[Thomas A. Watson|Thomas Watson]] at 333 Grant Avenue in San Francisco. ''The New York Times'' reported:
{{blockquote|On October 9, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas A. Watson talked by telephone to each other over a two-mile wire stretched between Cambridge and Boston. It was the first wire conversation ever held. Yesterday afternoon [on January 25, 1915], the same two men talked by telephone to each other over a 3,400-mile wire between New York and San Francisco. Dr. Bell, the veteran inventor of the telephone, was in New York, and Mr. Watson, his former associate, was on the other side of the continent.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0125.html |title=Phone to Pacific From the Atlantic |work=The New York Times |date=January 26, 1915 |access-date=July 21, 2007}}</ref>}}

===Competitors===
As is sometimes common in scientific discoveries, simultaneous developments occurred, as evidenced by a number of inventors who were at work on the telephone.{{Sfn|MacLeod|1999|p=19}} Over 18 years, the Bell Telephone Company faced 587 court challenges to its patents, including five that went to the [[Supreme Court of the United States|U.S. Supreme Court]],<ref name="ATCS">{{cite web |title=Who Really Invented The Telephone? |website=Australasian Telephone Collecting Society |url=http://www.telephonecollecting.org/invent.htm |location=Moorebank, NSW, Australia |access-date=April 22, 2011 |archive-date=September 24, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924114048/http://www.telephonecollecting.org/invent.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref> but none was successful in establishing priority over Bell's original patent,{{sfn|Groundwater|2005|p=95}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Black |first=Harry |title=Canadian Scientists and Inventors: Biographies of People who made a Difference |url=https://archive.org/details/canadianscientis0000blac |url-access=registration |location=Markham, Ontario |publisher=Pembroke |date=1997 |page=[https://archive.org/details/canadianscientis0000blac/page/19 19] |isbn=978-1-55138-081-0 }}</ref> and the Bell Telephone Company never lost a case that had proceeded to a final trial stage.{{sfn|Groundwater|2005|p=95}} Bell's laboratory notes and family letters were the key to establishing a long lineage to his experiments.{{sfn|Groundwater|2005|p=95}} The Bell company lawyers successfully fought off myriad lawsuits generated initially around the challenges by Elisha Gray and [[Amos Dolbear]]. In personal correspondence to Bell, both Gray and Dolbear had acknowledged his prior work, which considerably weakened their later claims.{{sfn|Mackay|1997|p=179}}

On January 13, 1887, the U.S. government moved to annul the patent issued to Bell on the grounds of fraud and misrepresentation. After a series of decisions and reversals, the Bell company won a decision in the Supreme Court, though a couple of the original claims from the lower court cases were left undecided.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/167/224.html |title=US v. American Bell Tel Co (1897) |date=May 10, 1897 |website=Findlaw |access-date=July 28, 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://supreme.justia.com/us/128/315/case.html |title=United States V. American Bell Telephone Co., 128 U.S. 315 (1888) |website=Jusrtia US Supreme Court |date=November 12, 1885 |access-date=July 28, 2010}}</ref> By the time the trial had wound its way through nine years of legal battles, the U.S. prosecuting attorney had died and the two Bell patents (No. 174,465, dated March 7, 1876, and No. 186,787, dated January 30, 1877) were no longer in effect, although the presiding judges agreed to continue the proceedings due to the case's importance as a [[stare decisis|precedent]]. With a change in administration and charges of conflict of interest (on both sides) arising from the original trial, the [[United States Attorney General|U.S. attorney general]] dropped the lawsuit on November 30, 1897, leaving several issues undecided [[Merit (legal)|on the merits]].<ref>{{cite journal |title=The United States Government vs. Alexander Graham Bell. An important acknowledgment for Antonio Meucci |journal=[[Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society]] |volume=22 |issue=6 |pages=426–442 |date=December 2002 |doi=10.1177/0270467602238886 |last1=Catania |first1=Basilio|s2cid=144185363 }}</ref>

During a deposition filed for the 1887 trial, Italian inventor [[Antonio Meucci]] also claimed to have created the first working model of a telephone in Italy in 1834. In 1886, in the first of three cases in which he was involved,{{refn|Meucci was not involved in the final trial.{{clarify|date=June 2018|reason=What final trial is this talking about?}}|group=N}} Meucci took the stand as a witness in hope of establishing his invention's priority. Meucci's testimony was disputed due to lack of material evidence for his inventions, as his working models were purportedly lost at the laboratory of [[ADT Security Services|American District Telegraph]] (ADT) of New York, which was incorporated as a subsidiary of Western Union in 1901.<ref name="Catania">{{cite web |last=Catania |first=Basilio |url=http://www.chezbasilio.org/meucci_faq.htm#25 |title=Antonio Meucci – Questions and Answers: What did Meucci to bring his invention to the public? |website=Chezbasilio.org |date=November 6, 2009 |access-date=September 19, 2015}}</ref><ref name="ADT">{{cite web |url=http://www.adt.com/about-adt/history |title=Our History |website=ADT |access-date=September 18, 2015}}</ref> Meucci's work, like that of many other inventors of the period, was based on earlier acoustic principles and, despite evidence of earlier experiments, the final case involving Meucci was eventually dropped upon Meucci's death.{{sfn|Bruce|1990|pp=271–272}} But due to the efforts of Congressman [[Vito Fossella]], on June 11, 2002, the [[U.S. House of Representatives]] stated that Meucci's "work in the invention of the telephone should be acknowledged".<ref name="guardian.co.uk">{{cite news |author=Rory Carroll |title=Bell did not invent telephone, US rules |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/jun/17/humanities.internationaleducationnews |work=The Guardian|date=June 17, 2002|access-date=October 25, 2015}}</ref><ref>[http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c107 "H.RES.269: Resolution 269."] ''thomas.loc.gov.'' Retrieved: July 28, 2010. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150713175614/http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c107 |date=July 13, 2015 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.chezbasilio.it/us_congr_rec.htm |title=Congressional Record – Speech by Prof. Basillio |date=September 5, 2001 |archive-date=July 17, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110717032953/http://www.chezbasilio.it/us_congr_rec.htm |access-date=September 18, 2015}}</ref> This did not put an end to the still contentious issue.<ref>{{cite web |title=Antonio Meucci (1808–1889) |website=Italian Historical Society of America |url=http://www.italianhistorical.org/page42.html |access-date=September 18, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151015195124/http://www.italianhistorical.org/page42.html |archive-date=October 15, 2015 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Some modern scholars do not agree that Bell's work on the telephone was influenced by Meucci's inventions.<ref name=Bellis>{{cite web |first=Mary |last=Bellis |url=http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_Antonio_Meucci.htm |title=The History of the Telephone – Antonio Meucci |website=About.com Inventors |access-date=December 29, 2009 |archive-date=May 28, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200528235654/https://www.thoughtco.com/antonio-meucci-4071768 |url-status=dead }}</ref>{{refn|Tomas Farley also writes that "Nearly every scholar agrees that Bell and Watson were the first to transmit intelligible speech by electrical means. Others transmitted a sound or a click or a buzz but our boys [Bell and Watson] were the first to transmit speech one could understand."<ref name=Bellis/>|group=N}}

The value of Bell's patent was acknowledged throughout the world, and patent applications were made in most major countries. When Bell delayed the German patent application, the electrical firm [[Siemens & Halske]] set up a rival manufacturer of Bell telephones under its own patent. Siemens produced near-identical copies of the Bell telephone without having to pay royalties.{{sfn|Mackay|1997|p=178}} The establishment of the [[International Bell Telephone Company]] in Brussels, Belgium, in 1880, as well as a series of agreements in other countries eventually consolidated a global telephone operation. The strain put on Bell by his constant appearances in court, necessitated by the legal battles, eventually resulted in his resignation from the company.<ref>{{multiref2|{{Cite book |last=Parker |first=Steve |title=Alexander Graham Bell and the Telephone |series=(Science Discoveries) |date=1995 |page=23 |url=https://archive.org/details/alexandergrahamb00park/page/23 |url-access=registration |isbn=978-0-7910-3004-2 | oclc=1024162541|publisher=Chelsea House}}|
{{Cite journal|date=June 1910
|journal=Scientific American |volume=102 |issue=23 |title=Alexander Graham Bell and the Telephone |page=462
|bibcode=1910SciAm.102..462. |doi=10.1038/scientificamerican06041910-462 }}}}</ref>{{refn| Many of the lawsuits became rancorous, with Elisha Gray becoming particularly bitter over Bell's ascendancy in the telephone debate, but Bell refused to launch a countersuit for libel.{{citation needed|date=February 2020}}|group=N}}

{{Further|The Telephone Cases}}