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).