Becher v. Contoure Laboratories, Inc.’s Empirical Analysis
279 U.S. 388 · 1929
Citation profile
132 federal appellate · 41 district · 79 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 401 later decisions (14 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2015 · most notably United States v. United States Gypsum Co. (1948), Marrese v. American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (1985)
132 federal appellate · 41 district · 79 state decisions — followed in 16 states
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
reviewedBecher v. Contoure Laboratories, Inc. (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Pratt v. Paris Gaslight Coke Co · E. I. Du Pont De Nemours Powder Co. v. Masland · Manson v. Williams · Smith & Egge Manufacturing Co. v. Webster
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 401 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A fact is not prevented from being proved in [a state] case in which it is material, by the suggestion that if it is true an important patent is void — and ... we can see no ground for giving less effect to proof of such a fact than to any other.”
16 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““to keep secret and confidential the information thus obtained and not to use it for the benefit of himself or of any other than Oppenheimer,”—”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Richards v. Kline
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.