Black v. Thorne’s Empirical Analysis
111 U.S. 122 · 1884
Citation profile
12 federal appellate · 9 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 45 later decisions (6 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 1956 · most notably Tilghman v. Proctor (1888), Hurlbut v. Schillinger (1889)
12 federal appellate · 9 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.
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 45 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The question, therefore, was what advantage in its production did the use of the improvements in burning wet tan have over other known methods in common use of producing the same result; that is, the same heat. * * * If other methods in common use produce the same results, with equal facility and cost, the use of the patented invention cannot add to the gains of the Infringer, or impair the just rewards of the inventor.””
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.