Webber v. Virginia’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

10 federal appellate · 14 district · 68 state decisions

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 213 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The legislation respecting the articles which the state may adopt after the patents have expired it may equally adopt during their continuance. It is only the right to the invention or discovery — the incorporeal right— which the state cannot interfere with. Congress never intended that the patent laws should displace the police powers of the states, meaning by that term those powers by which the health, good order, peace, and general web fare of the community are promoted. Whatever rights are reserved to inventors must be enjoyed in subordination to this general authority of the state over all property within its limits.””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. United Shoe Machinery Co. · 338 Ill. App. 618 - Chicago Bar Ass'n v. Kellogg

2. ““By these sections, read together, we have this result: the agent for the sale of articles manufactured in other states must first obtain a license to sell, for which he is required to pay a specific tax for each, county in which he sells or offers to sell them; while the agent for the sale of articles manufactured in the state, if acting for the manufacturer, is not required to obtain a license or pay any license tax. Here there is a clear discrimination in favor of home manufacturers and against the manufacturers of other states. Sales by manufacturers are chiefly effected through agents. A tax upon their agents when thus engaged is, therefore, a tax upon them, and if this is made to depend upon the foreign character of the articles, that is, upon their having been manufactured without the state, it is to that extent a regulation of commerce in the articles between the states. It matters not whether the tax be laid directly upon the articles sold or in the form of licenses for their sale. If by reason of their foreign character the state can impose a tax upon them or upon the person through whom the sales are effected, the amount of the tax will be a matter resting in her discretion. She may place the tax at so high a figure as to exclude the introduction of the foreign article and prevent competition with the home product. It was against legislation of this discriminating kind that the framers of the Constitution intended to' guard when they vested in Congress the power to”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Bacon v. Locke

3. ““The combination of different materials so as to produce a new and valuable product or result, or to produce a well-known product or result more rapidly or better than before, which constitutes the invention or discovery, cannot be forbidden by the state, nor can the sale of the article or machine produced be restricted except as the production and sale of other articles, for the manufacture of which no invention or discovery is patented or claimed, may be forbidden or restricted.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Ozan Lumber Co. v. Union County Nat. Bank of Liberty