 Bell formed a partnership with two of his students' parents, including prominent Boston lawyer Gardiner Hubbard, to help fund his research in exchange for shares of any future profits.He experimented with many different possible transmitters and receivers from 1872 to 1876, created numerous drawings of liquid transmitters, and obtained a patent in 1875 for a using a liquid transmitter.Elisha Gray was a prominent inventor in Highland Park, Illinois.