Laitram Corp. v. Deepsouth Packing Co.’s Empirical Analysis
443 F.2d 928 · 1971
Citation profile
25 federal appellate · 2 district ·
Appellate journey
Relationships
Relies on Graham v. John Deere Company of Kansas City Calmar Inc · Graver Tank & Mfg. Co. v. Linde Air Products Co. · Anderson's-Black Rock, Inc. v. Pavement Salvage Co. · Stamicarbon, N. V. v. Escambia Chemical Corp. · Swofford v. B & W, Inc.
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 39 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“What constitutes equivalency must be determined against the context of the patent, the prior art, and the particular circumstances of the case. Equivalence, in the patent law, is not the prisoner of a formula and is not an absolute to be considered in a vacuum. It does not require complete identity for every purpose and in every respect. In determining equivalents, things equal to the same thing may not be equal to each other and, by the same token, things for most purposes different may sometimes be equivalents. Consideration must be given to the purpose for which an ingredient is used in a patent, the qualities it has when combined with the other ingredients, and the function which it is intended to perform. An important factor is whether persons reasonably skilled in the art would have known of the interchangeability of an ingredient not contained in the patent with one that was.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““Considering the legal standards which are to be applied in such cases, we hold in sum that the trial court acted correctly when it refused to be led into such a technical consideration of the form of the separate elements in Laitram’s patents as would submerge the overall substance of what these patents claimed to do and the subsantiality of the functions they described. Patent construction is seldom a matter of pure literalism.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“If two devices do the same work in substantially the same way, and accomplish substantially the same result, they are the same, even though they differ in name, form, or shape.”
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.