Walker v. Forbes, Inc.’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

15 federal appellate · 3 district ·

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 27 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Davis submitted evidence that, during and shortly after the Gap’s advertising campaign featuring the “fast” ad, the corporate parent of the Gap stores realized net sales of $1,668 billion, an increase of $146 million over the revenues earned in the same period of the preceding year. The district court considered this evidence inadequate to sustain a judgment in the plaintiffs favor because the overall revenues of the Gap, Inc. had no reasonable relationship to the act of alleged infringement. See Davis I, 1999 WL 199005 , at . Because the ad infringed only with respect to Gap label stores and eyewear, we agree with the district court that it was incumbent on Davis to submit evidence at least limited to the gross revenues of the Gap label stores, and perhaps also limited to eyew-ear or accessories. Had he done 'so, the burden would then have shifted to the defendant under the terms of § 504(b) to prove its deductible expenses and elements of profits from those revenues attributable to factors other than the copyrighted work.... [W]e think the term “gross revenue” under the statute means gross revenue reasonably related to the infringement, not unrelated revenues. Thus, if a publisher published an anthology of poetry which contained a poem covered by the plaintiffs copyright, we do not think the plaintiffs statutory burden would be discharged by submitting the publisher’s gross revenue resulting from its publication of hundreds of titles, including trade books, textbooks, cookb”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 150 F. Supp. 2d 313 - Bruce v. Weekly World News, Inc. · Data General Corporation v. Grumman Systems Support Corporation

2. “In establishing the infringer’s gain, the assessment in every case must be guided by the rule that the statute awards the plaintiff only the “profits of the infringer that are attributable to the infringement. ” 17 U.S.C. J 504(b) (emphasis supplied). This is a rule of causation, and it is necessary to attribute profits directly to the infringement]- which in turn requires that the damages be direct rather than remote, and that an appropriate apportionment be made between revenue attributable to infringement and other revenue.... 3 Melville B. Minner & David Minner, Minner on Copyright § 14.03 (1993) (footnotes omitted).”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 150 F. Supp. 2d 313 - Bruce v. Weekly World News, Inc. · Data General Corporation v. Grumman Systems Support Corporation

3. “any profits of the infringer that are attributable to the infringement and are not taken into account in computing the actual damages. In establishing the in-fringer’s profits, the copyright owner is required to present proof only of the infringer’s gross revenue, and the in-fringer is required to prove [its] deductible expenses and the elements of profit attributable to factors other than the copyrighted work.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Dash v. Mayweather · 271 F. Supp. 2d 737 - Lowry's Reports, Inc. v. Legg Mason, Inc.