Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Co. v. Walker’s Empirical Analysis
329 U.S. 1 · 1946
Citation profile
154 federal appellate · 34 district · 14 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 453 later decisions (11 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2023 · most notably Warner-Jenkinson Company Inc v. Hilton Davis Chemical Co (1997), Diamond v. Diehr (1981)
154 federal appellate · 34 district · 14 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
reviewedHalliburton Oil Well Cementing Co. v. Walker (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 35 U.S.C. § 33
Relies on Burford v. Sun Oil Co. · Continental Paper Bag Company v. Eastern Paper Bag Company · Lincoln Engineering Co of Illinois v. Stewart-Warner Corporation · General Electric Co. v. Wabash Appliance Corp. · United Carbon Co. v. Binney & Smith 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 453 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“* * * the basis of the Court’s decision * * * is that the claims “do not particularly point out and distinctly claim the alleged invention as required by 35 U.S.C. 112” in that they use “conveniently functional language at the exact point of novelty.” [Emphasis mine.]”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“combination in terms of what it will do rather than in terms of its own physical characteristics or its arrangement in the new combination apparatus. We have held that a claim with such a description of a product is invalid as a violation of [the patent statute]. 22 Halliburton, 329 U.S. at 9, 67 S.Ct. at 10. In particular, the Supreme Court feared that means-plus-function language was overbroad and ambiguous. Id. at 12, 67 S.Ct. at 12 (”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“What he claimed in the court below and what he claims here is that his patent bars anyone from using in an oil well any device heretofore or hereafter invented which combined with the Lehr and Wyatt machine [ (the prior art) ] performs the function of clearly and distinctly catching and recording echoes from tubing joints with regularity. Just how many different devices there are of various kinds and characters which would serve to emphasize these echoes, we do not know. The Halliburton device, alleged to infringe, employs an electric filter for this purpose. In this age of technological development there may be many other devices beyond our present information or indeed our imagination which will perform that function and yet fit these claims. And unless frightened from the course of experimentation by broad functional claims like these, inventive genius may evolve many more devices to accomplish the same purpose. Yet if Walker’s blanket claims be valid, no device to clarify echo waves, now known or hereafter invented, whether the device be an actual equivalent of Walker’s ingredient or not, could be used in a combination such as this, during the life of Walker’s patent.”
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.