Diamond v. Chakrabarty’s Empirical Analysis
1980
Citation profile
223 federal appellate · 188 district · 45 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 794 later decisions (36 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2025 · most notably Patsy v. Board of Regents of Fla. (1982), Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid (1989)
223 federal appellate · 188 district · 45 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.
Relationships
Applies 35 U.S.C. § 101 · 35 U.S.C. § 102 · 35 U.S.C. § 112 · 35 U.S.C. § 161 · 35 U.S.C. § 162 · 42 U.S.C. § 2181 · 7 U.S.C. § 2402
Relies on Graham v. John Deere Company of Kansas City Calmar Inc · William Marbury v. James Madison · Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill · Southeastern Community College v. Davis · Perrin v. United States
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 794 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[w]hoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.”
54 later decisions quote this exact passage“Such discoveries are `manifestations of ... nature, free to all men and reserved exclusively to none.'”
17 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[b]road ... language is not necessarily ambiguous when congressional objectives require broad terms.”
6 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.