equivalence
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 339 U.S. 605 - Graver Tank & Mfg. Co. v. Linde Air Products Co. · 1950Most cited · 4,955 citing opinions
patent law
What constitutes equivalency must be determined against the context of the patent, the prior art, and the particular circumstances of the case. Equivalence, in the patent law, is not the prisoner of a formula and is not an absolute to be considered in a vacuum. It does not require complete identity for every purpose and in every respect.
How often courts cite the case defining “equivalence”
Court decisions citing the opinion that defined “equivalence” — 4,945 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining case as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.