Elisha Gray - Elisha Gray and the Telephone

Inventor, born in Barnesville, Ohio, USA. A manufacturer of telegraphic apparatus, his firm became the Western Electric Co. His 60 patents included a multiplex telegraph. He also claimed the invention of the telephone, but lost the patent rights to Alexander Graham Bell after a long legal battle in the US Supreme Court.

Elisha Gray
Inventor of the telephone
Born	August 2, 1835 Barnesville, Ohio
Died	January 21, 1901 Newtonville, Massachusetts

Biography

Elisha Gray (August 2, 1835 – January 21, 1901) was an electrical engineer and is best known for his Invention of the telephone in 1876 in Highland Park, Illinois, independently of Alexander Graham Bell.

In 1865 Gray invented a self-adjusting telegraph relay that automatically adapted to varying insulation of the telegraph line.

In 1867 Gray received a patent for the self-adjusting telegraph relay and in later years he receive patents for more than 70 other inventions. Gray's inventions and patent costs were financed by a dentist Dr. Samuel S. White wanted Gray to focus on the acoustic telegraph which promised huge profits to the exclusion of what appeared to be unpromising competing inventions such as the telephone. Gray applied for a patent on a harmonic telegraph which consisted of multi-tone transmitters, each tone being controlled by a separate telegraph key. On December 29, 1874 in the church, Gray gave the first public demonstration of his invention for transmitting musical tones and transmitted "familiar melodies through telegraph wire" according to a newspaper announcement.

In July 1875, Gray was granted patent 166,096 for "Electric Telegraph for Transmitting Musical Tones" for the Acoustic Telegraph.

Elisha Gray and the Telephone

Because of Samuel White's opposition to Gray working on the telephone, Gray did not tell anybody about his new invention for transmitting voice sounds until Friday, February 11, 1876 when Gray requested that his patent lawyer William D.

On the morning of Monday February 14, 1876, Gray signed and had notarized the caveat that described a telephone that used a liquid microphone. When Gray was notified through Baldwin his lawyer of this interference, Baldwin advised Gray to abandon his caveat because he said Bell had invented it first and had it notarized earlier than Gray. When Gray agreed to abandon his caveat, the examiner granted the patent to Bell.

Contrary to the popular story, Gray's caveat was taken to the US Patent Office a few hours before Bell's application. But the filing fee for Gray's caveat was entered on the cash blotter hours after Bell's filing fee which led to the myth that Bell had arrived at the Patent Office earlier. Whether Bell's application was filed before or after Gray's caveat no longer mattered, because Gray abandoned his caveat and that opened the door to Bell being granted US patent 174,465 for the telephone on 7 March 1876.

Although Gray had abandoned his caveat, Gray applied for a patent for the same invention in late 1877. The Examiner held "while Gray was undoubtedly the first to conceive of and disclose the [variable resistance] invention, as in his caveat of February 14, 1876, his failure to take any action amounting to completion until others had demonstrated the utility of the invention deprives him of the right to have it considered." Gray challenged Bell's patent anyway, and after two years of litigation, Bell was awarded rights to the invention, and as a result, Bell is credited as the inventor.

Bell's patent was still disputed because there had been rumors that the Examiner allowed Bell to see Gray's caveat and allowed Bell or his lawyer to add a handwritten margin note describing an alternate design identical to Gray's liquid microphone design as opposed to Bell's design which required customers to shout into Bell's voice-powered transmitter/microphone. See Elisha Gray and Alexander Bell Controversy.

Gray wrote several books including:

Patents

Patent images in TIFF format

U.S. Patent 0166095 Electric Telegraph for Transmitting Musical Tones, issued July 1875 U.S. Patent 0166096 Improvement in Electric Telegraph for Transmitting Musical Tones, issued July 1875 U.S. Patent 0386814 Art of Telegraphy, issued July 1888 (writing telegraph or telautograph) U.S. Patent 0386815 Telautograph, issued July 1888 U.S. Patent 0461470Telautograph, issued October 1891 U.S. Patent 0461472 Art of and Apparatus for Telautographic Communication, issued October 1891 (improved speed and accuracy) U.S. Patent 0491347 Telautograph, issued February 1893 U.S. Patent 0494562 Telautograph, issued April 1893