Historically, if asked who invented the telephone, people will almost without fail say Alexander Graham Bell. However, according to historical documents this is not entirely true. There were several other people who claimed to be the inventor and several lawsuits which arose from those claims. Indeed, in 2002, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a symbolic bill conferring recognition for the invention of the telephone on Antonio Meucci.

Mr. Meucci is not the only man who could have been the inventor of the telephone. Charles Bourseul, Johann Phillip Reis, and Elisha Gray all have caveats in history that involve the telephone.

According to the Scientific American Supplement No. 520,, December 18, 1885 there are drawings, notes, and lawyer affidavits to hack up Mr. Meucci's claims of the inventing the first telephone.

Mr. Meucci's patent for his invention expired in 1874 and he was not able to pay the continuation fee and Western Union labs claimed to have lost the working models that were Mr. Meucci's invention. To further muddy the waters for Mr. Alexander Graham Bell there is the fact that he conducted experiments in the same lab where Mr. Meucci's materials had been stored. Giving ample access to any notes or records left behind. In March of 1876 Mr. Bell was granted a patent and has forever been credited with inventing the telephone.

Around 1874, a Chicago man named Elisha Gray created a tone telegraph. This telegraph could send more than one set of notes at a time simultaneously, a type of multiplexing. These telegraphs could be read by the operator by sound of the code or recorded on paper by a ribbon using Morse code. Western Union utilized his harmonic telegraph and he was granted a patent for it in 1875.

Mr. Gray would next file for a patent for a telephone on the exact day that Alexander Graham Bell did. Both patent applications described a similar water transmitter. This of course raises the question of who copied who? History already shows that Mr. Bell received the patent for the telephone; leaving the question did his wealth and prestige play a part in obtaining it over Elisha Gray? We may never know the answer to that.