O'Reilly v. Morse’s Empirical Analysis
56 U.S. 62 · 1853
Citation profile
178 federal appellate · 86 district · 3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 535 later decisions (48 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2023 · most notably MARKMAN Et Al. v. WESTVIEW INSTRUMENTS, INC., Et Al. (1996), Westinghouse v. Boyden Power Brake Co. (1898)
178 federal appellate · 86 district · 3 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.
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 535 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Eighth. I do not propose to limit myself to the specific machinery or parts of machinery described in the forgoing specification and claims; the essence of my invention being the use of the motive power of the electric or galvanic current, which I call electro-magnetism, however developed for marking or printing intelligible characters, signs or letters, at any distances, being a new application of that power of which I claim to be the first inventor or discoverer. [ 56 U.S. at 119 , 15 How. at 112 .]”
12 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““If this cannot be done by the means he describes, the patent is void; and, if it can be done, then the patent confers on him the exclusive right to use the means he specifies to produce the result or effect he describes, and nothing more.*’”
11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“making use of the motive power of magnetism, when developed by the action of such current or currents, substantially as set forth in the ... description, ... as means of operating or giving motion to machinery, which may be used to imprint signals upon paper or other suitable material, or to produce sounds in any desired manner, for the purpose of telegraphic communication at any distances.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.