Deering v. Winona Harvester Works’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

253 federal appellate · 140 district · 2 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 674 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Granting the witnesses to be of the highest character, and never so conscientious in their desire to tell only the truth, the possibility of their being mistaken as to the exact device used, which, though bearing a general resemblance to the one patented, may differ from it in the very particular which makes it patentable, is such as to render oral testimony peculiarly untrustworthy; particularly so if the testimony be taken after the lapse of years from the time the alleged anticipating device was used. If there be added to this a personal bias, or an incentive to color the testimony in the interest of the party calling the witness, to say nothing of downright perjury, its value is, of course, still more seriously impaired.””

   10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Koerner v. Deuther · National Mach. Corp. v. Benthall Mach. Co.

2. ““Admitting that additional elements are necessary to render the device operative, it does not necessarily follow that the omission of these elements invalidates the claim, or that the precise elements described in the patent as rendering it operative must be read into the claim. * * * In such case any appropriate means for making it operative will be understood. Otherwise the infringer might take the most important part of a new invention and, by changing the method of adapting it to the machine to which it is an improvement, avoid the charge of infringement. The invention of a needle with the eye near the point is the basis of all the sewing machines used; but the methods of operating such a needle are many, and if Howe had been obliged to make his own method a part of every claim in which the needle was an element, his patent would have been practically worthless.””

   7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Stiegele v. J. M. Moore Import-Export Co. · Chambers-Bering-Quinlan Co. v. Faries

3. “[O]ral testimony, unsupported by patents or exhibits, tending to show prior use of a device regularly patented is, in the nature of the case, open to grave suspicion.”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Standard Sanitary Mfg. Co. v. J. D. Mott Iron Works · Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. v. American Window Glass Co.