Patent sketches of Gray’s (top) and Bell’s (bottom) telephones, via Hounshell.When Alexander Graham Bell filed a patent for the telephone on February 14th, 1876, he beat competing telephone developer Elisha Gray to the patent office by just a few hours. The resulting legal dispute between Bell Telephone and Western Union (which owned the rights to Gray’s invention) would consume millions of dollars before being resolved in Bell’s favor in 1879.Such cases of multiple invention are common, and som...