previously patented
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 157 U.S. 1 - Bate Refrigerating Co. v. Sulzberger · 1895Most cited · 260 citing opinions
patented before the issue of the American patent, put themselves upon what is called the rule of literal, grammatical interpretation, and insist that such meaning is the necessary import of the language; and that it would therefore be to no purpose to show that such a construction.
How often courts cite the case defining “previously patented”
Court decisions citing the opinion that defined “previously patented” — 260 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.