Isenstead v. Watson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 district ·

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

1. ““Great care and scrutiny should be particularly taken in connection with applications for medical patents. While the granting of a patent does not legally constitute a certificate that the medicine to which it relates is a good medicine and will cure the disease or successfully make the test which it was intended to do, nevertheless, the granting of such a patent gives a kind of official imprimatur to the medicine in question on which as a moral matter some members of the public are likely to rely. In view of these circumstances, it is right and proper that the Patent Office should be very careful and perhaps even reluctant to grant a patent on a new medical formula until it has been thoroughly tested and successfully tried by more than one physician. It seems to the Court that therefore the Patent Office, as a matter of public policy, followed a proper course in this matter.””

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Krimmel · In re Hartop

2. ““ * * * ‘Utility’ is a broad term and implies among other things capacity to perform the function or to attain the result claimed by the applicant in his disclosure. For example, in the case of Besser v. Merrilat Culvert Core Co., 243 F. 611 , 612, [ 156 C.C.A. 309 ,] decided by the Eighth Circuit, it was held that: “ ‘The term “useful,” as contained in the patent law, when applied to a machine, means that the machine will accomplish the purpose practically when applied in industry.’ ” “This Court is of the opinion that the same test of utility sould be applied to a composition of matter. In other words, will the invention attain the purpose and will it operate as disclosed and claimed by the inventor ?””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. In re Hartop · 199 F. Supp. 51 - Commonwealth Engineering Co. v. Ladd