 Perhaps the most famous example of such a conflict was on 14 February 1876, when Elisha Gray filed a patent caveat and Alexander Graham Bell filed a patent application on the same day, both relating to the telephone.Gray ended up abandoning his patent caveat, but the case was extremely controversial and continued in the courts for many years.A deaf patent examiner (Bell was well known for his work with the deaf and had a deaf wife) had met with Bell on the matter, and a handwritten marginal note including one of Gray's critical technical innovations appeared on Bell's patent, which had not been there on the original filing.