Heald v. Rice’s Empirical Analysis
104 U.S. 737 · 1881
Citation profile
62 federal appellate · 12 district · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 145 later decisions (21 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 1995 · most notably Markman v. Westview Instruments, Inc. (1995), Lincoln Engineering Co of Illinois v. Stewart-Warner Corporation (1938)
62 federal appellate · 12 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 Seymour v. Osborne · Julia Hotchkiss Executrix of John Hotchkiss Deceased John Davenport and John Quincy v. Miles Greenwood · Burr v. Duryee · Powder Company v. Powder Works
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 145 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“That is, if it appears from the face of the instruments that extrinsic evidence is not needed to explain terms of art, or to apply the descriptions to the subject-matter, so that the court is able from mere comparison to say what is the invention described in each, and to affirm from mere comparison that the inventions are not the same, but different, then the question of identity is one of pure construction, and not of evidence, and consequently is a matter of law for the court, without any auxiliary matter of fact to be passed upon by a jury, if the action be at law.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““What invention could he claim? He uses Morey’s device precisely as Morey’s patent contemplated, and. the Cornish Boiler exactly as it was designed it should be used. And in the combination each operates separately, producing its own results. There was no inventive resource drawn upon to bring them together.” - .”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“inoperative or invalid by reason of a defective or insufficient specification, or by reason of the patentee claiming as his own invention or discovery more than he had a right to claim as new.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Wing v. Anthony
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.