The Bell Telephone: Patent Nonsense?

"Just because two things look alike, it doesn't mean they're the same thing," says Bernard Carlson, a professor of science, technology and society at the University of Virginia, who has written extensively on Bell's experiments. "Bell doesn't simply take what he saw or didn't see in Gray's caveat. They are two similar devices but two very different principles. They look alike but they don't work alike."

So there you have it: Some experts say Bell invented the telephone; others say he swiped it.

It would all be very confusing except that the question of who invented the telephone has already been debated and decided by an august body of distinguished Americans -- the United States House of Representatives.

In 2001, Vito Fossella (R-N.Y.) introduced a resolution to honor Antonio Meucci for "his work in the invention of the telephone." Meucci was an Italian-born inventor who immigrated to New York in 1850 and created some kind of device that enabled him to communicate between the rooms of his house. According to Fossella, Meucci obtained a caveat for his invention in 1871, five years before Bell and Gray, but he was too poor to renew the caveat.

"If Meucci had been able to pay the $10 fee to maintain the caveat after 1874," Fossella wrote in his resolution, "no patent could have been issued to Bell."

On June 11, 2002, Fossella's resolution came to the floor of the House for debate. Jo Ann Davis (R-Va.) called Meucci "the true inventor of the telephone." Danny Davis (D-Ill.) said that Meucci "discovered electrical speech transmission." And Fossella praised Meucci as a representative of "Americans of Italian descent who have and will continue to make this the greatest country in the history of the world."

Nobody said a word in defense of Bell. The resolution passed on a voice vote.

Case closed, right? After all, who would dispute the wisdom of the United States House of Representatives?

Well, actually, Shulman would. And so would Grosvenor.

"Meucci's telephone was more like two tin cans and a thread," says Shulman.

"Meucci never had any equipment that worked," says Grosvenor. "It never worked."

Grosvenor launches into a long monologue on the absurdity of the idea that Meucci invented the telephone, which leads into an equally long monologue on the absurdity of the idea that Gray invented the telephone.

Suddenly, he is interrupted by a sharp, jangling noise. A phone is ringing. The phone is in Grosvenor's pocket. He pulls it out.

"Hello," he says. "Richard? . . . Richard?"

He can't hear Richard. He can't hear anybody. "Hello!" he yells.

No response. Something's wrong.

"[Expletive!]" he says. And then the great-grandson of Alexander Graham Bell sticks his phone back in his pocket, a disgusted look on his face.

Who invented this thing?