Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Samara Brothers, Inc.’s Empirical Analysis
2000
Citation profile
180 federal appellate · 160 district · 27 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 977 later decisions (8 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2025 · most notably Chambers v. Time Warner, Inc. (2002), Dastar Corp. v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. (2003)
180 federal appellate · 160 district · 27 state decisions — followed in 10 states
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 Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 15 U.S.C. § 1052 (§ 2 of the Trademark Act of 1946 (Lanham Act)) · 15 U.S.C. § 1057 (§ 7 of the Trademark Act of 1946 (Lanham Act)) · 15 U.S.C. § 1065 (§ 15 of the Trademark Act of 1946 (Lanham Act)) · 15 U.S.C. § 1114 (§ 32 of the Trademark Act of 1946 (Lanham Act)) · 15 U.S.C. § 1125 (§ 43 of the Trademark Act of 1946 (Lanham Act)) · 15 U.S.C. § 1127 (§ 45 of the Trademark Act of 1946 (Lanham Act))
Relies on Two Pesos, Inc. v. Taco Cabana, Inc. · Inwood Laboratories, Inc. v. Ives Laboratories, Inc. · Qualitex Co. v. Jacobson Products Co. · Abercrombie & Fitch Co. v. Hunting World, 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 977 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[A] mark can be distinctive in one of two ways. First, a mark is inherently distinctive if its intrinsic nature serves to identify a particular source .... Second, a mark has acquired distinctiveness, even if it is not inherently distinctive, if it has developed secondary meaning, which occurs when, in the minds of the public, the primary significance of a mark is to identify the source of the product rather than the product itself.”
30 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“In addition to protecting registered marks, the Lanham Act, in § 43(a), gives a producer a cause of action for the use by any person of `any word, term, name, symbol, or device, or any combination thereof ... which ... is likely to cause confusion ... as to the origin, sponsorship, or approval of his or her goods....'”
17 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[t]he attribution of inherent distinctiveness to certain categories of word marks and product packaging derives from the fact that the very purpose of attaching a particular word to a product, or encasing it in a distinctive packaging, is most often to identify the source of the product.” Wal-Mart, 529 U.S. at 212 , 120 S.Ct. 1339 . In contrast, product design”
16 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.