Robert W. Brown & Co. v. De Bell’s Empirical Analysis
243 F.2d 200 · 1957
Citation profile
13 federal appellate · 2 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 20 later decisions — most recently February 1987
13 federal appellate · 2 district ·
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
Relies on Gorham Company v. White · Glen Raven Knitting Mills, Inc. v. Sanson Hosiery Mills, Inc. · R. E. Dietz Co. v. Burr & Starkweather Co. · Granat Bros. v. Gomez
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 20 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Appellants make some contention that the Bessolo patent is invalid because it is primarily functional and utilitarian. This argument is based on the fact that the principal purpose of the design is to provide advertising space, and that the frame itself has the utilitarian purpose of holding a license plate. “[4] It is true that the purpose of Congress in authorizing the grant of design patents was to give encouragement to the decorative arts. Such patents contemplate not so much utility as appearance. Gorham Mfg. Co. v. White, 14 Wall. 511 , 81 U.S. 511 , 20 L.Ed. 731 . But it does not follow from this that a design which comprehends a useful, in addition to a decorative, purpose cannot be the subject of a valid design patent. While it is the design which is patented, it is immaterial that the subject of the design may embody a functional or utilitarian purpose.””
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.