Smith v. Mid-Continent Inv. Co.’s Empirical Analysis
106 F.2d 622 · 1939
Citation profile
14 federal appellate · 2 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 29 later decisions — most recently January 1997 · most notably Mercoid Corporation v. Mid-Continent Inv Co (1944), American Infra-Red Radiant Co., Inc., a Delaware Corporation, and Hupp Corporation, a Virginia Corporation v. Lambert Industries, Inc., a Minnesota Corporation, Industrial Ceramics, Inc.,a Minnesota Corporation, and Agard L. Lambert, Lambert Industries, Inc., a Minnesota Corporation, Industrial Ceramics, Inc.,a Minnesota Corporation, and Agard L. Lambert v. American Infra-Red Radiant Co., Inc., a Delaware Corporation, and Huppcorporation, a Virginia Corporation (1966)
14 federal appellate · 2 district ·
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 Sanitary Refrigerator Co. v. Winters · Reckendorfer v. Faber · Hailes v. Van Wormer · Toledo Pressed Steel Co. v. Standard Parts, Inc. · Smith v. Magic City Kennel Club, Inc.
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 29 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““A third method [of determining the scope of a patent] is by examination of the prior art. This is so because the prior art is a field not open to discovery. Novelty, justifying a patent, must be found outside that field. No matter what the discovery asserted or claimed in the patent, such assertion or claims must be construed to be limited so as to exclude the prior art. In questions of the scope of a patent, the place of the prior art is to determine the ‘range of equivalents’ to be applied. If the discovery revealed and claimed is in a new field of endeavor or is a pronounced journey forward in an art, then the claims are entitled to be liberally construed, resulting in a wide range of equivalents; but if the discovery is in a crowded art and is merely a mincing step forward, the claims are restricted to a narrow range to avoid trespass upon the domain of others or of the public.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Where broad claims are denied in the Patent Office and the applicant accepts the ruling of the Office and substitutes narrower claims upon which a patent issues, the patentee is estopped to extend construction of the granted claims to include the matter denied (citations omitted). Such an estoppel is not, however, based upon the discussion in the Office or even upon statements made, in the Office, by the applicant but rests upon the rejection, and substitution of claims. Keystone Driller Co. v. Northwest En gineering Corporation, 294 U.S. 42, 48 , 55 S.Ct. 262 , 79 L.Ed. 747 . Appellant relies upon certain rejection of claims by the Office and also upon certain statements of the Examiner and of the applicant. Under the rule above stated, we consider only the rejection and substitution of claims as the possible basis of estoppel.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.