Kohn v. Eimer’s Empirical Analysis
265 F. 900 · 1920
Citation profile
17 federal appellate · 5 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 31 later decisions — most recently December 1982 · most notably General Motors Corp. v. Estate Stove Co. (1953), Carter-Wallace, Inc. v. William N. Otte, as Trustee in Bankruptcy of Davis-Edwards Pharmacal Corp. (1973)
17 federal appellate · 5 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.
Relationships
Relies on Tate v. Baltimore & O. R. · Waterman v. Shipman · Dueber Watch-Case Manuf'g Co. v. Robbins · Johnson v. Lambert
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 31 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““We have not the slightest wish to minimize the vital importance of expert testimony in patent suits, or to suggest that we are not absolutely dependent upon it within its proper scope; but1 that scope is often altogether misapprehended, as the appellant has misapprehended it here. Specifications are written to those skilled in the art, among whom judges are not. It therefore becomes necessary, when the terminology of the art is not comprehensible to a lay person, that so much of it as is used in the specifications should be translated into colloquial language; in short, that the judge should understand what the specifications say. This is the only permissible use of expert testimony which we recognize. When the judge has understood the specifications, he cannot avoid the responsibility of deciding himself all questions of infringement and anticipation, and the testimony of experts upon these issues is inevitably a burdensome impertinence. “Now the question whether the judge needs the assistance of experts to understand the specifications is for him to decide. Doubtless he ought to be chary of assuming too readily that he does understand what he may not; but, if he is too confident, Ms mistake eventually transpires. The important point is that it is he who must determine when he needs the help of experts and when he does not, and that decision, except in the clearest case, we should not be disposed to disturb. Waterman v. Shipman, supra, was written when no judges presided at”
3 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.