Meccano, Ltd. v. Wanamaker’s Empirical Analysis
250 F. 450 · 1918
Citation profile
5 federal appellate · 3 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 10 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 1966
5 federal appellate · 3 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.
Appellate journey
Relationships
Relies on Singer Manuf'G Co v. June Manuf'G Co · Kessler v. Eldred · Meccano, Ltd. v. Wagner · Wagner v. Meccano Ltd. · Wright Co. v. Herring-Curtiss Co.
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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The complainant cannot obtain a monopoly for all time of perforated plates of the lengths having equidistant holes and intervening spaces which, it first used. These are functional features of the units of construction, which any one is at liberty to use. Of course, it cannot claim a monopoly of constructing the particular models or toys which it has made, as, for example, wheelbarrows, bridges, cranes, Ferris wheels, trucks, etc. Assuming that the public associates plates of this description with the complainant as a source, and that there is' likely to he confusion because of similarity of the outfits, it is a question whether it is entitled, within the decision of the Supreme Court in Singer Co. v. June, 163 U. S. 169 , 16 Sup. Ct. 1002 , 41 L. Ed. 118 , to more protection than that outfits made by others should be advertised and sold as the product of the makers, under names and in packages which do not simulate the complainant’s. This is true of the outfits which the defendant sells. The name of the complainant’s is ‘Meccano,’ and of those sold by the defendant ‘American Model Builder.’ They are advertised as made by the American Mechanical Toy Company, and sold in dissimilar packages. So, in the nature of things, the constructing elements and the things constructed being the same, the plates illustrating them and the instructions contained in the manuals furnished with the two outfits must be more or less alike. All that should be required of other makers is to do inde”
1 later decision 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.