Franke v. Wiltschek’s Empirical Analysis
209 F.2d 493 · 1953
Citation profile
61 federal appellate · 10 district · 24 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 142 later decisions — most recently December 2017 · most notably Hyde Corporation v. Huffines (1958), Van Products Co. v. General Welding & Fabricating Co. (1965)
61 federal appellate · 10 district · 24 state decisions — followed in 11 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 28 U.S.C. § 1332 (Class Action Fairness Act of 2005)
Relies on Erie Co v. Tompkins · Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp. · Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Electric Manufacturing Co. · Williams v. People of State of New York · Guaranty Trust Co. v. York
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 142 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“. Plaintiffs do not assert, indeed cannot assert, a property right in their development such as would entitle them to exclusive enjoyment against the world. Theirs is not a patent, but a trade secret. The essence of their action is not infringement, but breach of faith. It matters not that defendants could have gained their knowledge from a study of the expired patent and plaintiffs’ publicly marketed product. The fact is that they did not. Instead they gained it from plaintiffs via their confidential relationship, and in so doing incurred a duty not to use it to plaintiffs’ detriment. This duty they have breached. [Citations omitted].”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“* * * Even if resort to the patterns [plans] of the plaintiff was more of a convenience than a necessity, still, if there was a secret, it belonged to him, and the defendant had no right to obtain it by unfair means or to use it after it was thus obtained.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[Defendant’s] conduct was grossly improper and gave rise to the plaintiff’s cause of action, based on long-settled equitable principles and supported by the marked changes in the attitude of the law towards the need for commercial morality. “[T]he tendency of the law, both legislative and common, has been in the direction of enforcing increasingly higher standards of fairness or commercial morality in trade.” We know of no persuasive reason for depriving the plaintiff of the benefits of its accrued cause of action.... Surely the defendants are in no just position to seek this result....”
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.