In re Ludtke’s Empirical Analysis
441 F.2d 660 · 1971
Citation profile
How this case has been cited
Cited by 25 later decisions — most recently October 1997 · most notably In re Schreiber (1997), In re Oelrich (1981)
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
Applies 35 U.S.C. § 102 · 35 U.S.C. § 103 · 35 U.S.C. § 112 · 35 U.S.C. § 132
Relies on In re Wagenhorst · In re Swinehart · In re Hughes · In re Sarett · In re Benson
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 25 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[I]t is elementary that the mere recitation of a newly discovered function or property, inherently possessed by things in the prior art, does not cause a claim drawn to those things to distinguish over the prior art. Additionally, where the Patent Office has reason to believe that a functional limitation asserted to be critical for establishing novelty in the claimed subject matter may, in fact, be an inherent characteristic of the prior art, it possesses the authority to require the applicant to prove that the subject matter shown to be in the prior art does not possess the characteristic relied on. [ 439 F.2d at 212-13 , 58 CCPA at 1031 , 169 USPQ at 229.]”
2 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. In re Schreiber · In re Best
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.