Ricker v. General Electric Co.’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 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 16 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[a]ll [appellant's] copyright gives [him] is the right to prevent plagiarism.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Charles Merrill Mount v. The Viking Press, Inc., Publishers · McMahon v. Prentice-Hall, Inc.

2. ““ * * * ‘independent reproduction of a copyrighted * * * work is not infringement’, whereas it is vis « vis a patent. 'Correlative with the greater immunity of a patentee is the doctrine of anticipation which does not apply to copyrights: The alleged inventor is chargeable with full knowledge of all the prior art, although in fact he may be utterly ignorant of it. The ‘author’ is entitled to a copyright if he independently contrived a work completely identical with what went before; similarly, although he obtains a valid copyright, he has no right to prevent another from publishing a work identical with his, if not copied from his. A patentee, unlike a copyrightee, must not merely produce something ‘original’ ; he must also be ‘the first inventor or discoverer.’ ‘Hence it is possible to have a plurality of valid copyrights directed to closely identical or even identical works. Moreover, none of them, if independently arrived at without copying, will constitute an infringement of the copyright of the others.’ ””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Stein v. Mazer

3. “such an explanation is beyond the bounds of all probability.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Charles Merrill Mount v. The Viking Press, Inc., Publishers