Smith v. Dravo Corp.’s Empirical Analysis
203 F.2d 369 · 1953
Citation profile
68 federal appellate · 4 district · 27 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 152 later decisions — most recently January 2015 · most notably Hyde Corporation v. Huffines (1958), Franke v. Wiltschek (1953)
68 federal appellate · 4 district · 27 state decisions — followed in 13 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Applies 35 U.S.C. § 282
Relies on Erie Co v. Tompkins · Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Electric Manufacturing Co. · Graver Tank & Mfg. Co. v. Linde Air Products Co. · Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Supermarket Equipment Corp. · Cuno Engineering Corporation v. Automatic Devices Corporation
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 152 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“'obtain the desired knowledge without himself paying the price in labor, money, or machines expended by the discoverer.'”
12 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““The word ‘property’ as applied to trademarks and trade secrets is an unanalyzed expression of certain secondary consequence of the primary fact that the law makes some rudimentary requirements of good faith. Whether the plaintiffs have any valuable secret or not the defendant knows the facts, whatever they are, through a special confidence that he accepted. The property may be denied, but the confidence cannot be. Therefore the starting point for the present matter is not property or due process of law, but that the defendant stood in confidential relations with the plaintiffs, or one of them. These have given place to hostility, and the first thing to be made sure of is that the defendant shall not fraudulently abuse the trust reposed in him. It is the usual incident of confidential relations. If there is any disadvantage in the fact that he knew the plaintiffs secrets, he must take the burden with the good.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“. . All that is required is that the information or knowledge represent in some considerable degree the independent efforts of its claimant. Clearly plaintiffs’ plans and customer lists fall within this broad field of knowledge and may properly be the subject matter of a trade secret. Pressed Steel Car Co. v. Standard Steel Car Co., 210 Pa. 464 , 60 A.4; Chas. H. Elliott Co. v. Skillkrafters Inc., 271 Pa. 185 , 144 A. 488 .””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.