Larry E. Clark v. Berkeley L. Bunker’s Empirical Analysis
453 F.2d 1006 · 1972
Citation profile
21 federal appellate · 2 district · 6 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 49 later decisions — most recently November 2018 · most notably Transgo, Inc. v. Ajac Transmission Parts Corp. (1985), Richardson v. Suzuki Motor Co. (1989)
21 federal appellate · 2 district · 6 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 Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Stiffel Co. · Compco Corp. v. Day-Brite Lighting, Inc. · Tilghman v. Proctor · E. I. Du Pont De Nemours Powder Co. v. Masland · Gay v. Parpart
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 49 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““ ‘The subject matter of a trade secret must be secret. Matters of public knowledge or of general knowledge in an industry cannot be appropriated by one as his secret.’ * * * [Restatement, Torts, section 757, comment b] at 5-6. However, the interest protected by this branch of the law is not secrecy as such. ‘The protection is merely against breach of faith and reprehensible means of learning another’s secret.’ Id. at 7. Accordingly, ‘a substantial element of secrecy must exist, so that, except by the use of improper means, there would be difficulty in acquiring the information.’ Id. at 6. “Whether such a degree of secrecy existed in a particular case is a question of fact. It is not negated because defendant by an expenditure of effort might have collected the same information from sources available to the public. Obviously it may be present despite the publication of general descriptions in advertisements, sales brochures, and similar material; or by sales where the details are not readily apparent from inspection of what is sold, or the purchasers do not disclose those details.””
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[a] trade secret may consist of any formula, pattern, device or compilation of information which is used in one's business, and which gives him an opportunity to obtain an advantage over competitors who do not know or use it.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“'the plaintiff is entitled to the profit he would have made had his secret not been unlawfully used, but not less than the monetary gain which the defendant reaped from his improper acts.'”
2 later decisions 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.