Hildreth v. Mastoras’s Empirical Analysis
257 U.S. 27 · 1921
Citation profile
143 federal appellate · 60 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 382 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 2006 · most notably Williams Mfg Co v. United Shoe Machinery Corporation (1942), National Recovery Technologies, Inc. v. Magnetic Separation Systems, Inc. (1999)
143 federal appellate · 60 district · 1 state decisions
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
reviewedMastoras v. Hildreth (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Continental Paper Bag Company v. Eastern Paper Bag Company · Miller v. Eagle Manuf'G Co · Dolbear v. American Bell Telephone Co. · Morley Sewing Machine Co. v. Lancaster
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 382 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“* * * It is not necessary, in order to sustain a generic patent, to show that the device is a commercial success. The machine patented may be imperfect in its operation; but if it embodies the generic principle and works, that is, if it actually and mechanically performs, though only in a crude way, the important function by which it makes the substantial change claimed for it in the art, it is enough. * * *”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“As [plaintiff's] patent is a generic patent, the doctrine of broad equivalents properly applies here”
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.