Rowe v. Blodgett & Clapp Co.’s Empirical Analysis
112 F. 61 · 1901
Citation profile
17 federal appellate · 4 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 32 later decisions — most recently September 1950 · most notably H. C. White Co. v. Morton E. Converse & Son Co. (1927), Applied Arts Corp. v. Grand Rapids Metalcraft Corp. (1933)
17 federal appellate · 4 district ·
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 Smith v. Whitman Saddle Co. · Rowe v. Blodgett & Clapp Co.
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 32 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"Design patents refer to appearance, not utility. Their object is to encourage works of art and decoration which appeal to the eye, to tile a'Stbeiic ('motions, to the beautiful. A horseshoe calk is a mere bit of iron or steel, not intended for display, but for an obscure use, and adapted to be applied to (ho shoe of a horse for use in snow, ice, and mud. The questions an examiner asks himself while investigating a device for a design patent are not ‘What will it do?’ but ‘How does it look? What new effect does it produce upon the eye?’ The term ‘useful’ in relation to designs means adaptation to producing pleasant emotions. There must be originality and beauty; mere mechanical skill is not sufficient.””
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“There is nothing in the record to indicate that there is anything attractive about the appearance of the complainant’s calk, or that the downward projecting curved lines appeal in any way to the eye, or serve to commend the article to purchasers, except for the suggestion that, seeing those lines, they will know the calk on which they appear is the product of the patentee, and not of some other maker.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Bradley v. Eccles
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.