Solomons v. United States’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

92 federal appellate · 70 district · 67 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 356 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “If one is employed to devise or perfect an instrument, or a means for accomplishing a prescribed result, he cannot, after successfully accomplishing the work for which he was employed, plead title thereto as against his employer. That which he has been employed and paid to accomplish becomes, when accomplished, the property of his employer.”

   14 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Withington-Cooley Manuf'g Co. v. Kinney · Barber v. National Carbon Co.

2. ““When a person in the employ of another, in a certain line of work, devises an improved method or instrument for doing that work, and uses the property of his employer and the service of other employees to develop and put in practicable form his invention, and explicitly assents to the use by the employer of such invention, a jury, or a court, trying the facts, is warranted in finding that he' has so far recognized the obligations of service flowing from his employment and the benefits resulting from his use of .the property, as to have given to such employer an irrevocable license to use sueh invention.””

   6 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Lane & Bodley Co. v. Locke · McAleer v. United States

3. ““There is no doubt whatever of the proposition laid down in Solomons’ Case, that the mere fact that a person is in the employ of the government does not preclude him from making improvements in the machines with which he is connected, and obtaining patents therefor, as his individual property; and that in such case the government would have no more right to seize .upon and appropriate such property than any other proprietor would have. On the other hand, it is equally dear that, if the patentee be employed to invent or devise such improvements, his patents obtained therefor belong to his employer, since in making such improvements he is merely doing what he was hired to do. Indeed, the Solomons Case might have been decided wholly upon that ground, irrespective of the question of estoppel, since the finding was that Clark had been assigned the duty of devising a stamp, and it was understood by everybody that the scheme would proceed upon the assumption that the best stamp which he could devise would be adopted, and made a part of the revised scheme. In these consultations it was understood that he was acting in his official capacity as chief of the bureau of engraving and printing, but it was not understood or intimated that the stamp he was to devise would be patented, or become his personal property. In fact, he was employed and paid to do the very thing which he did, viz. to devise an improved stamp; and, having been employed for that purpose, the fruits of his inventive sk”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Amdyco Corp. v. Urquhart · Peck v. Standard Parts Co.