He refused to abide by the adverse decision of the court.

Several years after his defeat, he came forward with new weapons and new methods of attack.

He became more hostile and irreconcilable; and until his death, in 1901, never renounced his claim to be the original inventor of the telephone.
The reason for this persistence is very evident.

Gray was a professional inventor, a highly competent man who had begun his career as a blacksmith's apprentice, and risen to be a professor of Oberlin.

He made, during his lifetime, over five million dollars by his patents.
In 1874, he and Bell were running a neck-and-neck race to see who could first invent a musical telegraph--when, presto! Bell suddenly turned aside, because of his acoustical knowledge, and invented the telephone, while Gray kept straight ahead.