On March 7, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received the patent to the first telephone in one of the most famous (and controversial) patent races in history! In particular, Bell received a patent for the telephone over his main competitor Elisha Gray. However, controversy looms to this day as to whether Bell actually developed the telephone independently and/or before Elisha Gray.

The race to patent the first telephone went something like this:

On February 14, 1876, around 9:00am to 9:30am, Gray (or his lawyer) filed a caveat for his telephone patent at the Patent Office in Washington D.C. A caveat was like a very dumb-downed patent application without any patent claims (i.e. special characteristics for the patent). About two hours later, Bell’s lawyer filed a similar patent application for the telephone and asked that it be registered immediately.

Sometime later (perhaps that day or days later), Gray’s lawyer William Baldwin, informed Gray that Bell had won the race to patent the telephone. It appears from the records that Baldwin had been told by someone that Bell's application had been notarized in January 1876. In those days, US patent law granted patents to the first to invent and not the first to file a patent. So, Baldwin may have thought that Bell had already taken the necessary steps to invent the telephone.

Baldwin advised Gray to abandon his caveat for the telephone and not to file a full telephone patent application. Gray listened to his lawyer and failed to turn his caveat into a full patent application. Bell then pursued the telephone patent.

On March 7, 1876, Bell received US patent number 174,465 for the first telephone – even though Bell had not invented the telephone yet. Three days later, on March 10, 1876, Bell finally got his telephone to work and when he told his assistant, Thomas Watson, "Mr. Watson, come! I want to see you." Interestingly, Bell used the same water transmitter design described in Gray’s caveat on March 10, 1876 – which was not described in Bell’s original patent application.

Years later, Zenas Fisk Wilber, the patent examiner for both Bell's application and Gray's caveat, was accused of divulging secret information to Bell about Gray’s caveat. In fact, Wilber admitted in a sworn affidavit that he had taken a bribe from Bell, a loan from Bell’s patent attorney, and showed Bell some of Gray's drawings in his caveat. Bell adamantly said he never engaged in such conduct with Wilber. But Bell did testify that he visited Wilber before his patent was granted and asked Wilber what part of his application conflicted with Gray's caveat. Bell stated that Wilber told him that the conflict was with his use of variable resistance and suggested that Bell make some amendments in his application – which Bell did.

To add even more intrigue, Gray’s lawyer, Baldwin, worked for Bell’s Telephone Company at the same time he was representing Gray in a patent office action against Bell’s Telephone Company. Still, after years of litigation, Bell was legally named the inventor of the telephone.

Bell went on to form the first telephone company, Bell Telephone Company, in 1877, now known as AT&T. Bell also founded the National Geographic Society in 1888.

Even with all the controversy surrounding the race to patent the first telephone, Bell and Gray were not the first inventors of the telephone according to Congress. In 2002, the United States House of Representatives passed a bill conferring recognition for the invention of the telephone to Antonio Meucci. Congress recognized Meucci as the first person to develop a type of telephone or "speaking telegraph." But Meucci never completed his invention due to financial problems.