Manufacturing Co. v. Trainer’s Empirical Analysis
101 U.S. 51 · 1879
Citation profile
58 federal appellate · 43 district · 52 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 287 later decisions (21 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2025 · most notably Hanover Star Milling Co. v. Metcalf (1916), United Drug Co. v. Theodore Rectanus Co. (1918)
58 federal appellate · 43 district · 52 state decisions — followed in 21 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on McLean v. Fleming · Gorham Company v. White · Canal Company v. Clark · Colman v. . Crump
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 287 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"Tho office of a trade-mark is to point out distinctively the origin or ownership of the article to which it is affixed; or, in other words, to give notice who was the producer. This may, in many cases, be done by a name, a mark, or a device well known, bur. not previously applied to the same article.””
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“* * * the owner of an original trade-mark has an undoubted right to be protected in the exclusive use of all the marks, forms, or symbols that were appropriated as designating the true origin or ownership of the article or fabric to which they are affixed; but he has no right to the exclusive use of any words, letters, figures, or symbols which have no relation to the origin or ownership of the goods, but are only meant to indicate their names or quality. He has no right to appropriate a sign or symbol, which from the nature of the fact it is used to signify, others may employ with equal truth, and therefore have an equal right to employ for the same purpose.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Letters or figures which, l>y the custom of traders, or the declaration of the manufacturer of the goods to which they are attached, are only used to denote qualify, are Incapable of exclusive appropriation, but are open to use by any one, like the adjectives of the language.” i”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.