 Gardiner Hubbard, Bell's lead partner in what would become the Bell Telephone Company, had his lawyer file Bell's patent application for the telephone in the U.S. patent office in Washington, D.C. on February 14, 1876.Gray's lawyer filed Gray's caveat the same day.Under the U.S. patent laws of 1876 (and until 2011), a patent was granted to the first to invent and not to the first to file, and therefore it should not have made any difference whether Bell or Gray filed first.