Durham v. Seymour’s Empirical Analysis
161 U.S. 235 · 1896
Citation profile
5 federal appellate · 4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 27 later decisions (5 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 1971 · most notably Charles Simms v. Hannah T Simms (1899), Territory of New Mexico Ex Rel McLean Company v. Denver Rio Grande Railroad Company (1906)
5 federal appellate · 4 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedthe decision below (from District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Morgan v. Daniels · Gayler v. Wilder · John Brown v. _____ Duchesne · Hill v. Wooster · Gandy v. Marble
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 27 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Whether the alleged invention were patentable or not was the question, and that question had no relation to' its value in money. If the invention were not patentable, Durham had suffered no loss; if the invention were patentable, it was not material whether it had or had not a money value. * * * “The matter in dispute must have actual value, and that cannot be supplied by speculation on the possibility that, in a given case, an invention might be held patentable.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“until the patent is issued there is no property right in it, that is, no such right as the inventor can enforce. At all events there is no power over its use, which is one of the elements of the right of property in anything capable of ownership.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“the discoverer of a new and useful improvement is vested by law with an inchoate right to its exclusive use, which he may perfect and make absolute by proceeding in the manner which the law requires”
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.