grant
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 74 U.S. 515 - Moore v. Marsh · 1868Most cited · 154 citing opinions
patent law
Grants, as well as assignments, must be in writing, and they must convey the exclusive right, under the patent, to make and use, and vend to others to be used, the thing patented, within and throughout some specified district or portion of the United States, and such right must be exclusive of the patentee, as well as of all others except the grantee.
How the Supreme Court has restated “grant”
Each Supreme Court definition of “grant,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “grant”
Court decisions citing the 3 opinions that defined “grant” — 238 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases 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.
All 3 definitions, chronological · 1820–1868
- ORIGINAL
But there are cases in which a grant is absolutely void; as where the State has no title to the thing granted, or where the officer had no authority to issue the grant. In such cases, the validity of the grant is necessarily examinable at law... the existence of the grant is, in itself, a sufficient ground, from which every man may infer that every prerequisite has been performed.
presumption of prerequisites; void only if state had no title
A grant passes some estate of greater or less degree, must be in writing, and is irrevocable, unless it contains words of revocation; whereas a license is a personal privilege, can be conferred by parol or in writing, conveys no estate or interest, and is revocable at the pleasure of the party making it.