Johann Philipp Reis - Telephone Invention Controversies

Telephone Invention Controversies

Besides Reis and Bell, many others claimed to have invented the telephone. The result was the Gray-Bell telephone controversy, one of the United States' longest running patent interference cases, involving Bell, Thomas Alva Edison, Elisha Gray, Emil Berliner, Amos Dolbear, J. W. McDonagh, G. B. Richmond, W. L. Voeker, J. H. Irwin, and Francis Blake Jr. The case started in 1878 and was not finalised until February 27, 1901. Bell and the Bell Telephone Company triumphed in this crucial decision, as well as every one of the over 600 other court decisions related to the invention of the telephone. The Bell Telephone Company never lost a case that had proceeded to a final trial stage.

Another controversy arose over a century later when the U.S. Congress passed a resolution in 2002 recognizing Italian-American Antonio Meucci's contributions in the invention of the telephone (not for the invention of the telephone), a declaration that bore no legal or other standing at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Canada's Parliament quickly followed with a tit-for-tat declaration, which clarified: "....that Alexander Graham Bell of Brantford, Ont., and Baddeck, N.S., the inventor of the telephone." Prior to his death, Meucci had lost his only concluded Federal lawsuit trial related to the telephone's invention.