Pearce v. Mulford’s Empirical Analysis
102 U.S. 112 · 1880
Citation profile
28 federal appellate · 15 district · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 116 later decisions (8 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2012 · most notably Pennsylvania Co v. Locomotive Engine Safety Truck Co (1884), Burt v. Evory (1890)
28 federal appellate · 15 district · 2 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Smith v. Goodyear Dental Vulcanite Co. · Gayler v. Wilder · Rubber-Tip Pencil Company v. Howard · William Phillips v. George Page
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 116 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““All Improvement is not invention, and entitled to protection as sucli. Thus to entitle it, it must be the product of some exercise of the inventive faculties, and it must involve something more than what is obvious to persons skilled in the art to which it relates.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““To entitle an improvement to protection under the patent laws, it must be the product of the exercise of the inventive faculties, and involve something beyond what is obvious to persons skilled in the art to which it relates.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.