As is sometimes common in scientific discoveries, simultaneous developments can occur, as evidenced by a number of inventors who were at work on the telephone. Over a period of 18 years, the Bell Telephone Company faced 587 court challenges to its patents, including five that went to the U.S. Supreme Court, but none was successful in establishing priority over the original Bell patent and the Bell Telephone Company never lost a case that had proceeded to a final trial stage. Bell's laboratory notes and family letters were the key to establishing a long lineage to his experiments. The Bell company lawyers successfully fought off myriad lawsuits generated initially around the challenges by Elisha Gray and Amos Dolbear. In personal correspondence to Bell, both Gray and Dolbear had acknowledged his prior work, which considerably weakened their later claims. COUNT 4
QSN1 During how many years did the Bell Company battle lawsuits? ANS1 18 QSN2 How many times were Bell's patents contested? ANS2 587 QSN3 How many of the court cases wound up at the Supreme Court? ANS3 5 QSN4 Elisha Gray and what other man were behind many of the court cases? ANS4 Amos Dolbear