equivalents
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 82 U.S. 187 - Gould v. Rees · 1872Most cited · 132 citing opinions
a patentee in such a case may substitute another ingredient for any one of the ingredients of his invention if the ingredient substituted performs the same function as the one omitted and was well known at the date of his patent as a proper substitute for the one omitted in the patented combination.
How often courts cite the case defining “equivalents”
Court decisions citing the opinion that defined “equivalents” — 132 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.