Invention of the telephoneCredit for the invention of the electric telephone is frequently disputed, and new controversies over the issue have arisen from time-to-time. Charles Bourseul, Antonio Meucci, Johann Philipp Reis, Alexander Graham Bell, and Elisha Gray, amongst others, have all been credited with the telephone's invention. The early history of the telephone became and still remains a confusing morass of claims and counterclaims, which were not clarified by the huge mass of lawsuits to resolve the patent claims of many individuals and commercial competitors. The Bell and Edison patents, however, were commercially decisive, because they dominated telephone technology and were upheld by court decisions.
- Alexander Graham Bell has most often been credited as the inventor of the first practical telephone. Additionally, the Italian-American inventor and businessman Antonio Meucci has been recognized by the U.S. House of Representatives for his contributory work on the telephone. In Germany, Johann Philipp Reis is seen as a leading telephone pioneer who stopped only just short of a successful device. However, the modern telephone is the result of work done by many people, all worthy of recognition of their contributions to the field. Bell was, however, the first to patent the telephone, an "apparatus for transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically".