prior invention
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 85 U.S. 120 - Coffin v. Ogden · 1873Most cited · 527 citing opinions
The invention or discovery relied upon as a defence, must have been complete, and capable of producing the result sought to be accomplished...If the thing were embryotic or inchoate; if it rested in speculation or experiment; if the process pursued for its development had failed to reach the point of consummation, it cannot avail to defeat a patent founded upon a discovery or invention which was completed...The law requires not conjecture, but certainty. If the question relate to a machine, the conception must have been clothed in substantial forms which demonstrate at once its practical efficacy and utility.
How often courts cite the case defining “prior invention”
Court decisions citing the opinion that defined “prior invention” — 527 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.