Sanitary Refrigerator Co. v. Winters’s Empirical Analysis
280 U.S. 30 · 1929
Citation profile
440 federal appellate · 171 district · 10 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,185 later decisions (20 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2019 · most notably Graver Tank & Mfg. Co. v. Linde Air Products Co. (1950), Aro Manufacturing Co. v. Convertible Top Replacement Co. (1964)
440 federal appellate · 171 district · 10 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
reviewedWinters v. Dent Hardware Co. (from Third Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Mast Foos Company v. Stover Manufacturing Company · Elizabeth v. Pavement Co. · Union Paper-Bag Machine Company v. Murphy · Concrete Appliances Co. v. Gomery
Cited together with Graver Tank & Mfg. Co. v. Linde Air Products Co. · Union Paper-Bag Machine Company v. Murphy · Graham v. John Deere Company of Kansas City Calmar Inc · Continental Paper Bag Company v. Eastern Paper Bag Company · Westinghouse v. Boyden Power Brake Co.
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 1,185 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“if it performs substantially the same function in substantially the same way to obtain the same result.”
46 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“undisputed evidence the question of infringement resolves itself in each case into one of law * * *.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The coaction of this shortened arm with the lug operates, however, on the cam principle, just as the coaction of the longer upper arm with the curved upper surface of the keeper head in the Winters and Crampton structure [i.e., the patented device], to trip or kick the lower arm of the latch lever into the wedged position under the keeper head. [T]he surface of the lug forms in effect the upper side of the keeper head as a substitute for the upper side in the Winters and Crampton structure, which, while left in place, performs no function whatever, just as if it were cut away.”
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.