A new book from journalist Seth Shulman argues that aggressive lawyers and a corrupt patent examiner helped one oft-acclaimed engineer profit from the stolen ideas of another. The accused? No, it's not Vonage founder Jeffrey Citron.

It's Alexander Graham Bell, subject of The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell's Secret. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that in the book, Shulman argues Bell's lab notebook features sketches of a voice transmitter eerily similar to sketches included in patents filed by the forgotten Elisha Gray. Neither party was available for comment by telephone.

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