McGrath v. Burke’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate ·

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

1. “It is sought by counsel for appellant to. bring Burke’s case within the rule announced in Mason v. Hepburn, 13 App. D. C. 86. In that case, however, seven years elapsed between the reduction of the invention to practice by Mason and the filing of his application. During that period there had been a complete suppression of the invention. Mason in the meantime had applied for, and received, a patent upon a similar invention, and until the Hepburn patent came to his attention, his earlier invention seems to have passed from his mind. This court has refused to extend the rule of the Hepburn case, which is a strict one, to any case not coming clearly within it. McBerty v. Cook, 16 App. D. C. 133. The case before us we think is clearly distinguishable from the Hepburn case. In this case less than two years elapsed between the date of Burke’s reduction to practice and the filing of his application in the Patent Office. This is not a case where an inventor, who has merely conceived an invention, is spurred into activity by the entry of a rival inventor into the field. He had reduced to practice, and before abandonment of the invention can be presumed there must appear a deliberate intention on the part of the inventor to surrender all claim to the invention. The present case seems to come clearly within the holding of this court in Esty v. Newton, 14 App. D. C. 50, and it was so held by the Board of Examiners in Chief and the Commissioner of Patents. There, as here, Newton delayed hi”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. MacLaren v. Stoetzel