Abercrombie & Fitch Co. v. Hunting World, Inc.’s Empirical Analysis
537 F.2d 4 · 1976
Citation profile
195 federal appellate · 83 district · 15 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 742 later decisions (5 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2022 · most notably Two Pesos, Inc. v. Taco Cabana, Inc. (1992), Park 'N Fly, Inc. v. Dollar Park & Fly, Inc. (1985)
195 federal appellate · 83 district · 15 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 Armstrong Paint & Varnish Works v. Nu-Enamel Corp. · Jefferson & Clearfield Coal & Iron Co. v. United States · Canal Company v. Clark · Standard Paint Company v. Trinidad Asphalt Manufacturing Company
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 742 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A term is suggestive if it requires imagination, thought and perception to reach a conclusion as to the nature of goods. A term is descriptive if it forthwith conveys an immediate idea of the ingredients, qualities or characteristics of the goods.”
35 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[N]o matter how much money and effort the user of a generic term has poured into promoting the sale of its merchandise and what success it has achieved in securing public identification, it cannot deprive competing manufacturers of the product of the right to call an article by its name.”
19 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Arrayed in an ascending order which roughly reflects their eligibility to trademark status and the degree of protection accorded, these classes are (1) generic, (2) descriptive, (3) suggestive, and (4) arbitrary or fanciful.”
12 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.