Jungersen v. Ostby & Barton Co.’s Empirical Analysis
335 U.S. 560 · 1949
Citation profile
341 federal appellate · 61 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 559 later decisions (7 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2019 · most notably Kassel v. Consolidated Freightways Corp. of Del. (1981), Reiner v. I. Leon Co. (1960)
341 federal appellate · 61 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedthe decision below (from Third Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Cuno Engineering Corporation v. Automatic Devices Corporation · Lincoln Engineering Co of Illinois v. Stewart-Warner Corporation · Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. v. Ray-O-Vac Co. · Dow Chemical Co. v. Halliburton Oil Well Cementing 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 559 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Where, as here, however, invention is plainly lacking, commercial success cannot fill the void.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“But I doubt that the remedy for such Patent Office passion for granting patents is an equally strong passion in this Court for striking them down so that the only patent that is valid is one which this Court has not been able to get its hands on.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“Of course, commercial success will not fill any void in an invalid patent. But it may fill the void in our understanding of what the invention has meant to those whose livelihood, unlike our own, depends upon their knowledge of the art. Concededly, in this high-pressure age sales volume may reflect only powerful promotion or marketing magic, and its significance as an index of novelty or utility may rightly be suspected. But Jungersen’s success was grounded not in the gullibility of the public but in the hard-headed judgment of a highly competitive and critical if not hostile industry. Knowing well its need for and its failure to achieve improvements on available processes, that industry discarded them, adopted this outsider’s invention, and made it a commercial success. It would take a singular self-assurance on the part of one who knows as little of this art as I do, or as I can learn in the few hours that can be given to consideration of this case, to ignore the judgment of these competitors who grew up in the industry and say that they did not know something new and useful when they saw it. And if Benvenuto Cellini’s age-old writings are so revealing to us laymen of the appellate Bench, it is hard to see why this practical-minded industry which the Court says was following Cellini failed through all the years to get his message.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.