substantial equivalent
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 280 U.S. 30 - Sanitary Refrigerator Co. v. Winters · 1929Most cited · 1,185 citing opinions
The substantial equivalent of a thing, in the sense of the patent law, is the same as the thing itself; so that if two devices do the same work in substantially the same way, and accomplish substantially the same result, they are the same, even though they differ in name, form, or shape.
How often courts cite the case defining “substantial equivalent”
Court decisions citing the opinion that defined “substantial equivalent” — 1,185 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.