Kregos v. Associated Press’s Empirical Analysis
3 F.3d 656 · 1993
Citation profile
22 federal appellate · 16 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 166 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2025 · most notably Kaye v. Grossman (2000), Waldman Publishing Corp. v. Landoll, Inc. (1994)
22 federal appellate · 16 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
Applies 15 U.S.C. § 1125 (§ 43 of the Trademark Act of 1946 (Lanham Act)) · 17 U.S.C. § 301 (§ 101 of the Copyright Act of 1976) · 17 U.S.C. § 507 (§ 101 of the Copyright Act of 1976)
Relies on Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. · Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co. · Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises · Mazer v. Stein · Brown v. United States
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 166 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Following this “extra element” test, we have held that unfair competition and misappropriation claims grounded solely in the copying of a plaintiff’s protected expression are preempted by section 301. However, many state law rights that can arise in connection with instances of copyright infringement satisfy the extra element test, and thus are not preempted by section 301. These include unfair competition claims based upon breaches of confidential relationships, breaches of fiduciary duties and trade secrets.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“A state cause of action is preempted by federal copyright laws if the subject matter of the state-law right falls within the subject matter of the copyright laws and the state-law right asserted is equivalent to the exclusive rights protected by federal copyright law.... A state law claim is not preempted if the “extra element” changes the “nature of the action so that it is qualitatively different from a copyright infringement claim.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“The mere reproduction of Kregos’ form by the AP, without any signature of false copyright notice [or] or any outward sign of ownership, could itself support a state claim for false designation of ownership. The appearance of a pitching form in a newspaper’s sports page, if not expressly attributing the work to someone else, implies that the form was the creation of a person on the newspaper’s staff.”
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.