Abbott v. Coe’s Empirical Analysis
109 F.2d 449 · 1939
Citation profile
147 federal appellate · 64 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 268 later decisions — most recently December 1976 · most notably Washington Terminal Co. v. Boswell (1941), Schilling v. Schwitzer-Cummins Co. (1944)
147 federal appellate · 64 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 Eibel Process Co. v. Minnesota & Ontario Paper Co. · Diamond Rubber Company of New York v. Consolidated Rubber Tire Company · Morgan v. Daniels · Mississippi Valley Barge Line Co. v. United States · Jefferson & Clearfield Coal & Iron Co. v. United States
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 268 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The applicant’s use of case-hardening produced an unexpected result which was not mentioned in the application ; it permitted the operation of the machine, even at a greatly increased speed, with little lubrication and no spattering of oil. This result was highly useful. But it was not claimed or disclosed, and it cannot retroactively turn the adoption of case-hardening, for other purposes, into invention. Despite contrary intimations in earlier cases like Diamond Rubber Co. v. Consolidated Rubber Tire Co., 1911, 220 U.S. 428 , 31 S.Ct. 444 , 55 L.Ed. 527 , it is now settled that useful innovation without invention is not patentable, and that innovation is not invention unless it ‘required some uncommon talent.’ Textile Machine Works v. Louis Hirsch Textile Machines, Inc., 1938, 302 U.S. 490, 498-499 , 58 S.Ct. 291 , 82 L.Ed. 382 . It is self-evident that an advantage of which the applicant knew nothing when he adopted case-hardening and made the patent claims now in suit, had no influence upon and no connection with his adoption of case-hardening and his making of these claims. It follows that the advantage of casehardening in relation to lubrication has no tendency to prove that his adoption of case-hardening and his making of the claims required or showed talent. Moreover, even invention is not patentable unless it is disclosed so that people can use it; and it is not at all clear that what Abbott disclosed would lead anyone, unless by accident, to the use of less oil and”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“`A mere preponderance of evidence' is not enough to justify reversing the Patent Office and deciding that an applicant is entitled to a patent.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Watson v. Bersworth“The presumption that the Patent Office is right is reenforced, in the present case, by the presumption that the trial court is right.”
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.