Prufrock Ltd. v. Lasater’s Empirical Analysis
781 F.2d 129 · 1986
Citation profile
29 federal appellate · 10 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 64 later decisions — most recently December 2016 · most notably Woodsmith Publishing Co. v. Meredith Corp. (1990), United Industries Corp. v. Clorox Co. (1998)
29 federal appellate · 10 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.
Relationships
Applies 15 U.S.C. § 1125 (§ 43 of the Trademark Act of 1946 (Lanham Act))
Relies on Anderson v. City of Bessemer City · United States v. United States Gypsum Co. · Ohio Bureau of Employment Services v. Hodory · John Harland Company v. Clarke Checks Inc · Truck Equipment Service Co. v. Fruehauf Corp.
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 64 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[i]f the particular feature is an important ingredient in the commercial success of the product, the interests in free competition permits [sic] its imitation in the absence of a patent or copyright.”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“expresses essentially the same concept as the more widely used term: 'trade dress,' " Id., which refers to the "total image of a product and may include features such as size, shape, color or color combinations, texture, graphics, or even particular sales techniques.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]rade dress is nonfunctional `if it is an arbitrary embellishment primarily adopted for purposes of identification and individuality.'”
3 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.