Hollister v. Benedict Burnham Manuf'G’s Empirical Analysis
113 U.S. 59 · 1885
Citation profile
136 federal appellate · 64 district · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 450 later decisions (57 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 1978 · most notably United States v. Causby (1946), United States v. Arthur Lynah (1903)
136 federal appellate · 64 district · 2 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 United States v. Great Falls Manuf'G Co · James v. Campbell · State v. Bailey
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 450 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““A skilled mechanic, witnessing the performance of a machine inadequate by reason of some defect to accomplish the object for which it had been designed, by the application of his common knowledge and experience, perceives the reason of the failure, and applies what is obviously wanting. It is but the display of the expected skill of the calling, and involves only the exercise of the ordinary faculties of reasoning upon the materials supplied by a special knowledge, and the faculty of manipulation which results from its habitual and intelligent practice, and is in no sense the creative work of that inventive faculty which it is the purpose of the Constitution and the patent laws to encourage and reward.””
19 later decisions quote this exact passage““A stamp, the body of which is made of paper or other material, and having a removable slip of metal or other material displaying thereon a serial number, or other specific identifying mark corresponding with a similar mark upon tlie stub, and so attached that the removal of such slip must mutilate or destroy the stamp.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“. “TMs is what we ascertain to be the precise idea embodied in the invention described and claimed in the patent, and which, although we find to be new in the sense that it had not been anticipated by any previous invention, of which it could therefore be declared to be an infringement, yet is not such an improvement as is entitled to be regarded in the sense of the patent laws as an invention. * * * All that remains to constitute the invention, seems to us not to spring from that intuitive faculty of the mind put forth in the search for new results, or new methods, creating what had not before existed, or bringing to light what lay hidden from vision; but, on the other hand, to be the suggestion of that common' experience, which arose spontaneously an<l by a necessity of human reasoning, in the minds of those who had become acquainted with the circumstances with which they had to deal. * * * It is but the display of the expected shill of the calling, and involves only the exercise of the ordinary faculties of reasoning upon the materials supplied by a special knowledge, and the facility of manipulation which results from its habitual and intelligent practice; and is in no sense the creative work of that inventive faculty which it is the purpose of the Constitution and the patent laws to encourage and reward.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.