mere aggregation
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 307 U.S. 350 - Toledo Pressed Steel Co. v. Standard Parts, Inc. · 1939Most cited · 403 citing opinions
patent law
They performed no joint function
Each served as separately it had done. The patented device results from mere aggregation of two old devices, and not from invention or discovery.
How often courts cite the cases defining “mere aggregation”
Court decisions citing the 2 opinions that defined “mere aggregation” — 575 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 2 definitions, chronological · 1935–1939
- ORIGINAL
the combination of them and adaptation of the combined result was a mere aggregation of old elements requiring no more than mechanical skill, and was not, therefore, patentable invention.