Brown v. Piper’s Empirical Analysis
91 U.S. 37 · 1875
Citation profile
149 federal appellate · 34 district · 57 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 440 later decisions (56 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2026 · most notably MARKMAN Et Al. v. WESTVIEW INSTRUMENTS, INC., Et Al. (1996), Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886)
149 federal appellate · 34 district · 57 state decisions — followed in 23 states
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
Relies on Julia Hotchkiss Executrix of John Hotchkiss Deceased John Davenport and John Quincy v. Miles Greenwood · Brown v. Piper
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 440 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The answer is that this is simply the application by the patentee of an old process to a new subject, without any exercise of the inventive faculty, and without the development of any idea which can be deemed new or original in the sense of the patent law. The thing was within the circle of what was well known before,, arid belonged to the public.””
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“' “Evidence of the state of the art is admissible in actions at law under the general issue without a special notice, and in equity cases without any averment in the answer touching the subject. It consists of proof of what was old and in general use at the time of the alleged invention. It is received for three purposes, and none other, to show what was then old, to distinguish what, was new, and io aid the court in the construction of the patent.” Brown v. Piper, 91 U. S. 37 , 23 L. Ed. 200 .”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Courts will take judicial notice of whatever is generally known within the limits of their jurisdiction; and, if the judge’s 'memory is at fault, he may refresh it by resorting to any means for that purpose which he may deem safe and reliable.””
3 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.