Destiny as a Supernatural Strategy- ANTONIO MEUCCI and GRAHAM BELL Case Study

Does the name Alexander Graham Bell ring a bell? It sure does. But have you ever heard of the name Elisha Gray? No doubt, that name must sound grey and bland to you. Gray was no less an inventor than Bell. In the 1870s, both men independently designed devices that could transmit speech electrically (the telephone). Both men rushed their respective designs to the patent office within hours of each other. But Alexander Graham Bell patented his telephone first (in 1876). A legal battle ensued between the two over the invention of the telephone. Fortunately for Bell but unfortunately for Gray, Bell won. But that is not the end of the story about the invention of the telephone. If you asked an Italian, who invented the telephone, you would most likely not hear Bell but Antonio Meucci. That Italian brother or sister is not talking without reason because the Enciclopedia Italiana di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti (Italian Encyclopedia of Science, Literature and Art) calls Antonio Meucci the “inventore del telefono” (inventor of the telephone). Why? About 20 years before Bell got the telephone patent, Meucci, who was living in Havana, Cuba then, had developed a form of voice communication apparatus. On December 28, 1871 (five years before Bell was given the telephone patent), Meucci filed a patent caveat – he did not have enough money to apply for the patent proper – for the telephone (#3335). He renewed it annually with $10.00. By 1874, Meucci, who was very poor, could no longer afford to renew the caveat. So, it expired. Meucci later learnt that the Western Union affiliate laboratory reportedly lost his working models which he had kept there for safety. Coincidentally, Alexander Graham Bell was conducting his telephone experiments in the same laboratory where Meucci’s materials had been stored and lost. Knowing that Meucci’s caveat had expired, Bell acted fast by filing for a telephone patent in 1876 and got it. He promptly commercialised it and made good money from it through the Bell Company. All attempts to cancel the Bell patent failed. Bell had money to hire good lawyers; Meucci was too poor to get a good lawyer (he was only able to get as his lawyer an orphan he had trained.) Bell’s lawyers were able to prove that Meucci’s invention did not contain any such elements of an “electric” speaking telephone. Tragically, while the case was still on, Meucci died in 1889 and the case was discontinued. One hundred and thirteen years after (in 2002), on the initiative of the Italian-American congressman, Vito Fossela, the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Resolution 269 noted among other things: “If Meucci had been able to pay the $10 fee to maintain the caveat after 1874, no patent could have been issued to Bell.” It went on to resolve as follows: “That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the life and achievements of Antonio Meucci should be recognised, and his work in the invention of the telephone should be acknowledged.” That was the best poor Meucci got.