MacGregor v. Johnston’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

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

1. “* * * This is not a case where an inexperienced individual inventor was struggling with the solution of a problem. The individuals connected with this controversy, upon both sides, were experienced experts in their respective lines of activity. When the record is considered as a whole, including the fact that, although the machine tested in Rexburg is said to have worked perfectly in August 1925 the application for patent was not filed until September 1926 and all the circumstances surrounding the parties and the occurrences are looked to, we do not feel that the junior party should prevail simply upon the arbitrary oral statements that the occurrences took place in 1925. The memories of men are too treacherous to admit of blind reliance upon them, and of all the records which it seems that the appellant, Johnston, might have produced in the way of documentary evidence, tending to support the alleged dates, nothing really helpful was produced. It seems to have been a ease in which the effort was to see how little, rather than how much, could be proven.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Marden v. Braselton