United Carbon Co. v. Binney & Smith Co.’s Empirical Analysis
317 U.S. 228 · 1942
Citation profile
209 federal appellate · 106 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 643 later decisions (18 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2022 · most notably MARKMAN Et Al. v. WESTVIEW INSTRUMENTS, INC., Et Al. (1996), Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Supermarket Equipment Corp. (1950)
209 federal appellate · 106 district · 1 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
reviewedBinney & Smith Co. v. United Carbon Co. (from Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on General Electric Co. v. Wabash Appliance Corp. · Schriber-Schroth Co. v. Cleveland Trust Co. · Exhibit Supply Co. v. Ace Patents Corp. · Muncie Gear Works, Inc. v. Outboard, Marine & Manufacturing 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 643 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““ * * * Whether the vagueness of the claim has its source in the language employed or in the somewhat indeterminate character of the advance claimed to have been made in the art is not material. An invention must be capable of accurate definition, and it must be accurately defined, to be patentable. Cf. General Electric Co. v. Wabash Corp., supra, 304 U.S. at 372, 373 , 58 S.Ct. at 903 , 82 L.Ed. 1402 .””
27 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. In re Seaborg · In re Packard“To sustain claims so indefinite as not to give the notice required by the statute would be in direct contravention of the public interest which Congress therein recognized and sought to protect.”
17 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““1. Substantially pure carbon black in the form of commercially uniform, comparatively small, rounded, smooth aggregates having a spongy or porous interior. “2. As an article of manufacture, a pellet of approximately one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter and formed of a porous mass of substantially pure carbon black.””
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.