Plurality

I was wondering how many patents have issued over the years that contain claim language referring back to a plurality of something.

Using the FreePatentsOnline search site last week I generated these results:

plurality — 1,663,532 patents

each of a plurality — 43,650

each of the plurality — 96,169*

each and every of the plurality — 5*

every one of the plurality — 105*

everyone of the plurality — 2*

all of the plurality — 5,056

at least one of the plurality — 33,431

one or more of the plurality — 7,456

any of the plurality — 4,314

at least two of the plurality — 4,864

two or more of the plurality — 1,129

plurality of the plurality — 423

sub-plurality of the plurality — 33

subplurality of the plurality — 14

some of the plurality — 5,037

several of the plurality — 87

few of the plurality — 5

most of the plurality — 35

either of the plurality — 43

none of the plurality — 628

enough of the plurality — 5

*One would think that if “each” were so well understood to mean “every one” that there would be a more even distribution between patents that recite “each of the plurality” (96,169) and patents that recite “every one of the plurality” (112).

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