No, I am not seeking legal advise, just need help understanding how references to legal stuff are made.

When I read a reference to some specific parts of the law like "Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA), Public Law 112-29, 125 Stat. 284" ... how do I decode the numbers "112-29", "125 Stat. 284"? What do these numbers refer to?

When I read a reference to an old case like "Chiuminatta Concrete Concepts, Inc. v. Cardinal Indus. Inc., 145 F.3d 1303, 1309, 46 USPQ2d 1752, 1757 (Fed. Cir. 1998)" ... how do I decode the numbers "145 F.3d 1303, 1309, 46 USPQ2d 1752, 1757"? What do these numbers refer to?

Any help here will be appreciated, thanks in advance!

I don't know the numbering system for laws, I just know that's the reference. it helps you find the law.

For cases, 145 F.3d 1303 is the citation to the case itself, which starts on page 1303 of volume 145 of the third series of the federal case law, and then 1309 is the reference to the specific page being cited. The "F.3d" just means that it's part of the third series of decisions. I don't remember how or why they decide when to switch to a new series. I believe (but I'm not certain) that USPQ is U.S. Patents Quarterly, same idea about volume in front, page number in back.

I don't read much case law these days, and haven't in a while (except for Delaware cases and the occasional Supreme Court case).

Thanks, Quirt!

Sadly, I am terrible at understanding references to legislation. I once could, but the ability to just google things or pull them up on a legal database has fossilized my recollection. I rarely have to find legislative history on a statute.

I can, thankfully, still understand case citations. Quirt explained it well. Back in the days of law being contained in fancy books in the library, they started with "F" for federal reporter and "F.Supp" extra federal stuff that didn't make it into F.

After a while, there were too many books in the F.Supp and F. series, so they started new series (e.g. F.2d and then F.3d). To further confuse matters, there are specialized series, like USPQ for patent decisions. And then when legal databases came along (Westlaw and Lexis), they started their own citation systems, which were very helpful for finding unpublished decisions that don't make the cut for the main volumes. You'll see those denoted as WL or Lexis followed by some numbers.

This is why they pay me the big bucks!