New Process Fermentation Co. v. Maus’s Empirical Analysis
122 U.S. 413 · 1887
Citation profile
12 federal appellate · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 52 later decisions (6 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 1968 · most notably Carnegie Steel Company v. Cambria Iron Company (1902), Expanded Metal Co. v. Bradford (1909)
12 federal appellate · 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 Tilghman v. Proctor · Cochrane v. Deener · Erastus Corning and John Winslow v. Peter a Burden · New Process Fermentation Co. v. Maus
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 52 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““A process is a mode of treatment of certain materials to produce a given result. It is an act, or a series of acts, performed upon the subject-matter to be transformed and reduced to a different state or thing. If new and useful, it is just as patentable as a piece of machinery. In the language of the patent law, it is an art. The machinery pointed out as suitable to perform the process may or may not be new or x>atentable; whilst the iirocess itself may be altogether new and produce an entirely new result. The process requires that certain things should be done with certain substances, and in a certain order; but the tools to be used in doing this may be of secondary consequence.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage“It is, therefore, a process or art. The apparatus for carrying out the process is of secondary consequence, and may itself be old, separately considered, without invalidating the patent, if the process be new and produces a new result.”
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.