Tone Brothers, Inc. v. Sysco Corporation, Defendant/cross-Appellant’s Empirical Analysis
1994
Citation profile
1 federal appellate · 15 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 42 later decisions — most recently August 2017 · most notably 26 F. Supp. 2d 834 - Black & Decker (U.S.) Inc. v. Pro-Tech Power Inc. (1998), 23 F. Supp. 2d 974 - Dethmers Manufacturing Co. v. Automatic Equipment Mfg. Co. (1998)
1 federal appellate · 15 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 Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. · Celotex Corporation v. Catrett H · Singleton v. Wulff · Ohio Bureau of Employment Services v. Hodory · Vandygriff v. Phillips
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 42 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) discouraging the removal, from the public domain, of inventions that the public reasonably has come to believe are freely available; (2) favoring the prompt and widespread disclosure of inventions; (3) allowing the inventor a reasonable amount of time following sales activity to determine the potential economic value of a patent; and (4) prohibiting the inventor from commercially exploiting the invention for a period greater than the statutorily prescribed time.”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“A person shall be entitled to a patent unless— (b) the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country, more than one year prior to the date of application for patent in the United States.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“We have held that, in order to determine whether an invention was in public use within the meaning of section 102(b), a court must consider how the totality of the circumstances of the case comports with the policies underlying the public use bar____ • Evidence of experiméntation occurring is part of the totality of the circumstances considered in a public use inquiry. The fact that there was experimentation is relevant to the question of whether the activities of the inventor were at odds with any of the four policies underlying the public use bar. In other words, the inquiry is not: (1) was there á public use, and, if so, (2) was the public use for a bona fide experimental purpose and thus excused. Rather, there is only one inquiry — was there a public use within the meaning of section 102(b).”
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.