In re Oelrich’s Empirical Analysis
666 F.2d 578 · 1981
Citation profile
28 federal appellate · 11 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 99 later decisions — most recently May 2025 · most notably Continental Can Company Usa Inc v. Monsanto Company (1991), Electro Medical Systems, S.A. v. Cooper Life Sciences, Inc. (1994)
28 federal appellate · 11 district ·
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
Relies on Hansgirg v. Kemmer · In re Swinehart · In re Wiseman · In re Ludtke · In re Craig
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 99 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Inherency, however, may not be established by probabilities or possibilities. The mere fact that a certain thing may result from a given set of circumstances is not sufficient.”
20 later decisions quote this exact passage“[M]ere recitation of a newly discovered function or property, inherently possessed by things in the prior art, does not distinguish a claim drawn to those things from the prior art.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“They are, in effect, arguing that a structure suggested by the prior art, and, hence, potentially in the possession of the public, is patentable to them because it also possesses an inherent, but hitherto unknown, function which they claim to have discovered. This is not the law.”
1 later decision 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.