Gottfried v. Miller’s Empirical Analysis
104 U.S. 521 · 1881
Citation profile
11 federal appellate · 8 district · 6 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 38 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2017 · most notably Westinghouse Electric Mfg Co v. Formica Insulation Co (1924), Baker-Cammack Hosiery Mills, Inc. v. Davis Co. (1950)
11 federal appellate · 8 district · 6 state decisions
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 Fleckner v. President Directors and Company of the Bank of the United States · Bank of Columbia v. Patterson's · Timothy Fanning v. Charles Gregoire and Charles Bogg · Lemuel H. Arnold v. Sarah B. Ruggles
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 38 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““It remains to consider whether the sale by Stromberg to the defendant, Miller, of one of the pitching-machines containing the improvement described in the patent, protects him from liability for its use in this suit. By the contract of sale Stromberg warranted, not only the title to the machine itself, but of the right to use it. If, at the time of the sale, he had been the owner of the patent, the sale would havo constituted a license to Miller to use the machine as long as it lasted; but Stromberg did not acquire any interest in the patent until long after the date of his sale to Miller. If he had subsequently become the sole owner of the patent, his previous sale to Miller of a machine embodying his patented invention would have estopped him from prosecuting Miller for an infringement of the patent by the use of the machine. ””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Curran v. Burdsall““Every patent, or any interest therein, shall be assignable in law by an instrument in writing * * * and shall be acknowledged before any notary public. * * * The certificate of such acknowledgment under the hand and official seal of such notary or other officer shall be prima facie evidence of the execution of such assignment.” (U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 3387.)”
1 later decision 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.