Mumm v. Jacob E. Decker & Sons’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

168 federal appellate · 103 district · 2 state decisions

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

1. ““* * * In a suit for infringement of a patent it is not a part of the plaintiff’s case to negative prior publication or prior use or the other matters to which R. S. §§ 4886 and 4887 [ 35 U.S.C.A. §§ 31 , 32] refer. These are matters of affirmative defense. As this court said in Cantrell v. Wallick, 117 U.S. 689 , 695, 696, 6 S.Ct. 970 , 974, 29 L.Ed. 1017 : ‘For the grant of letters patent is prima facie evidence that the patentee is the first inventor of the device described in the letters patent, and of its novelty. Smith v. Goodyear Dental Vulcanite Co., 93 U.S. 486 ( 23 L.Ed. 952 ); Lehnbeuter v. Holthaus, 105 U.S. 94 ( 26 L.Ed. 939 ).’ The issue of the patent is enough to show, until the contrary appears, that all the conditions under which a discovery is patentable in accordance with the statutes have been met. Hence, the burden of proving want of novelty is upon him who avers it. Walker on Patents, § 116. Not only is the burden to make good this defense upon the party setting it up, but his burden is a heavy one, as it has been held that ‘every reasonable doubt should be resolved against him.’ Id., Cantrell v. Wallick, supra; Coffin v. Ogden, 18 Wall. 120 , 124, 21 L.Ed. 821 ; The Barbed Wire Patent, 143 U.S. 275 , 284, 285, 12 S.Ct. 443 , 36 L.Ed. 154 ; Adamson v. Gilliland, 242 U.S. 350 , 353, 37 S.Ct. 169 , 61 L.Ed. 356 .””

   9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Gatch Wire Goods Co. v. W. A. Laid-Law Wire Co. · Calmar, Inc. v. Cook Chemical Co.

2. “A person shall be entitled to a patent unless ... (b) the invention ... was in public use or on sale in this country more than one year prior to the date of the application for patent in the United States.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Ballantyne Instruments & Electronics, Inc. v. Wagner · 577 F. Supp. 186 - Crane Co. v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.

3. ““Any person who has invented or discovered any new and useful art, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, or who has invented or discovered and asexually reproduced any distinct and new variety of plant, other than a tuber-propagated plant, not known or used by others in this country, before his invention or discovery thereof, and not patented or described in any printed publication in this or any foreign country, before his invention or discovery thereof, or more than one year prior to his application, and not in public use or on sale in this country for more than one year pri- or to his application, unless the same is proved to have been abandoned, may, upon payment of the fees required by law, and other due proceeding had, obtain a patent therefor.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Chenault v. Nebraska Farm Products, Inc.