profit
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 494 U.S. 56 - Reves v. Ernst & Young · 1990Most cited · 800 citing opinions
a valuable return on an investment," which undoubtedly includes interest.
How the Supreme Court has restated “profit”
Each Supreme Court definition of “profit,” 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 “profit”
Court decisions citing the 3 opinions that defined “profit” — 1,542 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 · 1869–1999
- ORIGINAL
Profit' is the gain made upon any business or investment, when both the receipts and payments are taken into the account.
patent infringement
gain from business or investment over and above expenditures, or gain made on business or investment where both receipts or payments are taken into account," id., at 1017, although in the same breath it noted that the term's "meaning must be derived from the context in which it is used," id., at 1016.