Bell’s patent and his words to Watson

On 7 March 1876 Alexander Graham Bell received U.S. Patent No. 174465 for an improvement in telegraphy involving sound transmission. Three days later, on 10 March, his telephone carried an intelligible sentence to his assistant Thomas Watson. According to Bell’s laboratory notebook, he said: “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.” This was a laboratory experiment, rather than a call through a modern telephone network. Other inventors contributed to the history of the telephone; the patent alone does not establish that one person invented every element.