Stevens v. Continental Can Co.’s Empirical Analysis
308 F.2d 100 · 1962
Citation profile
10 federal appellate · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 18 later decisions — most recently August 1991
10 federal appellate · 2 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
Relies on Pennsylvania Co v. Chamberlain · Chesapeake Ry Co v. Martin · Brown v. Piper · Miller v. Aderhold · Brown v. Piper
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 18 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““In general, it may be said that property rights may exist in copyrighted material (such as literary and musical compositions), architectural designs, mechanical or scientific inventions, advertising slogans, original paintings and works of art. (Citations omitted.) We find no case, however, where anything as simple as combining into a decorative scheme for picnic cups and plates, a wood grain background (already in use and well known) with cattle brands (long in use as a decoration on packages for merchandising) was held to be an original artistic scheme, work of art or a work of such novelty as to vest in its author a common law or statutory copyright or property right. Assuming, however, that such a decorative design creates a property right, it will not be accorded protection against use by others if it is not original with the person asserting the right to such protection or if such design is already in use and within public knowledge. * * * * [i]n order for a recovery to be obtained for such a disclosure, the matter communicated must possess the quality of novelty in the legal sense. So here, the fact that plaintiff announced to defendant’s agent that she was disclosing her design to him in confidence would not impose a duty upon defendant to pay her if the design was neither new nor novel. (Citations omitted.) She was a volunteer in talking of her design to defendant’s agent who made no promise and did not, for defendant, agree to use her claimed original idea. Her ide”
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.