Bates v. Coe’s Empirical Analysis
98 U.S. 31 · 1878
Citation profile
144 federal appellate · 58 district · 4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 417 later decisions (15 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2016 · most notably MARKMAN Et Al. v. WESTVIEW INSTRUMENTS, INC., Et Al. (1996), Markman v. Westview Instruments, Inc. (1995)
144 federal appellate · 58 district · 4 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 417 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Where the thing patented is an entirety, consisting of a separate device or of a single combination of old elements incapable of division or separate use, the respondent cannot make good the defense in question by proving that a part of the entire invention is found in one prior patent, printed publication, or machine, and another part in another, and so on indefinitely, and from the whole or any given number expect the court to determine the issue of novelty adversely to the complainant.” 102 U.S. at page 104.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“other inventors [to] know what part of the field of invention is unoccupied.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Unless another in the meantime has made the same invention, and secured by patent the exclusive right to make, use and vend the patented improvement. Within that rule, and subject to that exception, inventors may delay to apply for a patent.”
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.