Cantrell v. Wallick’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

229 federal appellate · 85 district · 6 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 595 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The burden of proof is Upon the defendant to establish this defense, for the grant of letters patent is prima facie evidence that the patentee is the first inventor of the device described in the letters patent and of its novelty. Smith v. Goodyear Dental Vulcanite Co., 93 U. S. 486 [ 23 L. Ed. 952 ]; Lehnbeuter v. Holthaus, 105 U. S. 94 , 26 L. Ed. 939 . Not only is the burden of proof to make good this defense upon the party setting it up, but it has been held that ‘every reasonable doubt should be resolved against him.’ Coffin v. Ogden, 18 Wall. 120 , 124, [ 21 L. Ed. 821 ]; Washburn v. Gould, 3 Story, 122 , 142, Fed. Cas. No. 17214.””

   13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Morgan v. Daniels · Consolidated Rubber Tire Co. v. Finley Rubber Tire Co.

2. ““In determining the question of infringement, the court or jury, as the case may be, are not to judge about similarities or differences by the names of things, but are to look at the machines or their several devices or elements in the light of what they do, or what office or function they perform, and how they perform it, and to find that one thing is substantially the same as another, if it performs substantially the same function in substantially the same way to obtain the same result,' always bearing in mind that devices in a patented machine are different in the sense of the patent law when they perform different functions, or in a different way, or produce a substantially different result, * * * as it is necessary in every such investigation to look at the mode of operation or the way the device works, and at the result, as well as at the means by which the result is attained. Inquiries of this kind are often attended with difficulty; hut if special attention is given to such portions of'a given device as really does the work, so as not to give undue importance to other parts of the same which are only used as a convenient mode of constructing the entire device, the difficulty attending the investigation will be greatly diminished, if not entirely overcome.””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Mann's Boudoir Car Co. v. Monarch Parlor Sleeping Car Co. · L. J. Mueller Furnace Co. v. Groeschel

3. ““Two patents may both be valid, when the second is an improvement on the first, in which event, if the second includes the first, neither of the two patentees can lawfully use the invention of the other without the other’s consent.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Crown Cork & Seal Co. of Baltimore City v. Brooklyn Bottle Stopper Co. · Reed v. Hughes Tool Co.