Minerals Separation, Ltd. v. Hyde’s Empirical Analysis
242 U.S. 261 · 1916
Citation profile
183 federal appellate · 89 district · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 473 later decisions (19 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2023 · most notably Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. v. Ray-O-Vac Co. (1944), Wl Gore Associates Inc v. Garlock Inc (1983)
183 federal appellate · 89 district · 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedHyde v. Minerals Separation, Ltd. (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Washburn Moen Manuf'G Co v. Beat 'Em All Barbed-Wire Co · Diamond Rubber Company of New York v. Consolidated Rubber Tire Company · Carnegie Steel Company v. Cambria Iron Company · Smith v. Goodyear Dental Vulcanite Co.
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 473 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the certainty which the law requires in patents is not greater than is reasonable, having regard to their subject-matter.”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““The present invention differs essentially from all previous results. * * * “It is not necessary for us to go into a detailed examination of the process in suit to distinguish it from the processes of the patents relied on as anticipations, convinced, as we are, that the small amount of oil used makes it clear that the lifting force which separates the metallic particles of the pulp from the other substances of it is not to be found principally in the buoyancy of the oil used, as was the case in prior processes, but that this force is to he found chiefly in the buoyancy of the air bubbles introduced into the mixture by an agitation greater than and different from that which had been resorted to before, and that this advance on the prior art and the resulting froth concentrate so different from the product of other processes make of it a patentable discovery as new and original as it has proved useful and economical.” ■”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Yet the investigations preceding were so informing that this final step was not a long one, and the patent must be confined to the results obtained by the use of oil within the proportions often described in the testimony’ and in the claims of the patent as ‘critical proportions/ ‘amounting to a fraction of 1 per cent on the ore/ and therefore the decree of this court will be that the patent is valid * *”
2 later decisions 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.