Re Harbeck’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

9 federal appellate · 2 district · 1 state decisions

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 18 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ 'This satisfies the law, which only requires as a condition of its protection that the world be given something new and that the world be taught how to use it. It is no concern of the world whether the principle upon which the new construction acts be obvious or obscure, so that it inheres in the new construction.’ In other words, the inventive discovery made by appellant consisted in an intelligent apprehension of the elements entering into the device and the bringing of them together in such a relation as to produce a new and useful article of commerce. The extent to which he modified or altered existing inventions is unimportant, since he accomplished a new and beneficial result not so obvious as to suggest itself to those skilled in the art. It remained for appellant to discover the hidden cause that marked the line between failure and success.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. In re Uddenborg

2. ““While the use of new materials to produce a known result, or of known materials to produce a new, but obvious, result, may not always constitute invention, if the new idea, when applied, brings success out of failure, produces a new and useful result and saving in operation or production, or efficiency instead of inefficiency, gives to the device new functions and useful properties, it is invention, and inay he patented.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. In re Coffield