Standard Terry Mills, Inc., in 86-1160 v. Shen Manufacturing Company. Appeal of Shen Manufacturing Company, Incorporated’s Empirical Analysis
803 F.2d 778 · 1986
Citation profile
15 federal appellate · 4 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 38 later decisions — most recently June 2013 · most notably Centaur Communications, Ltd. v. A/S/M Communications, Inc. (1987), Fisons Horticulture Inc 93-7224 v. Vigoro Industries Inc 93-7287 (1994)
15 federal appellate · 4 district ·
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. § 1117 (§ 35 of the Trademark Act of 1946 (Lanham Act)) · 15 U.S.C. § 1121 (§ 39 of the Trademark Act of 1946 (Lanham Act)) · 15 U.S.C. § 1125 (§ 43 of the Trademark Act of 1946 (Lanham Act)) · 17 U.S.C. § 505 (§ 101 of the Copyright Act of 1976) · 28 U.S.C. § 1291 · 28 U.S.C. § 1338 · 28 U.S.C. § 1912
Relies on Transgo, Inc. v. Ajac Transmission Parts Corp. · Clay v. United States · Lieb v. Topstone Industries, Inc. · Donsco, Inc. v. Casper Corp. · Newark Morning Ledger Company, a Corporation of the State of New Jersey v. The United States of America
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 38 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The functionality doctrine accomodates the twin purposes behind the Lanham Act. It protects the manufacturer (and the consumer) from the copying of those features that signify a product’s source (and quality) and encourages competition by preventing one manufacturer from acquiring a monopoly by attempting to trademark those features of a design essential to a successful product of that type.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“registrant of a mark registered in the Patent and Trademark Office.” Section 35 now covers common law trademark violations as well. As McCarthy notes, the statutory change "codified the nearly unanimous rule of the cases”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“we have doubts whether we should rectify Congress's oversight and hold that attorney's fees are available in this case.”
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.