Mitchell v. Tilghman’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

33 federal appellate · 18 district · 4 state decisions

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 114 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Finally the defendants argue tliat they only use a low degree of heat and pressure compared with that pointed out by the (Tilghman) patent, namely, only about 3 UP Fahrenheit instead of 012°. The precise degree of heat, as we have seen, is not of the essence of the patent. The specification only claims that a high degree of heat, such as would be sufficient to molt lead, is most: effective and rapid in producing the desired result, but suggests a trial of the apparatus employed with different degrees of heat so as to ascertain that which is best for each particular kind of fat. ‘.By starting the apparatus,' the language is, ‘at a low heat, and gradually increasing it, the temperature giving products most suitable to the intended application of the tatty body employed can easily be determined.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Tilghman v. Proctor · Corn Products Refining Co. v. Douglas & Co.

2. ““It only remains that we should express our views on the question of infringement. The defendants advance several reasons for the purpose of showing that their process docs not conflict with that oí Tilghman. First, because they do not use the apparatus described in the complainant’s patent, hut use a boiler in which the charge oí fat and other materials is placed and heated, and do not mix the fat and water in the maimer pointed out in the specification oí the patent, but, on the contrary, have inserted in the boiler a pump which forces the water as it settles to the bottom upwards to the top of the mass and pours it upon the upper surface, whence it again finds its way down through the fat, thus keeping up a constant mixture. It is unnecessary to add anything further on the subject of the form of the apparatus used. The patentee is not confined to a metallic coil of pipe heated in a furnace; but his patent extends to and embraces any convenient vessel for holding the mixture, which is strong enough to sustain the pressure necessary to prevent the water from being converted into steam. The defendants use such a vessel, and use it for the purpose indicated and pointed out in the patent. The vessel which they use has the requisite strength to prevent the water from being converted into steam, and does effect that object. And as to the defendants’ using a different method from that suggested in the patent for keeping up the mixture of fat and water, that is of no consequence. T”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Los Angeles Lime Co. v. Nye

3. ““Be it known that I, Albert J. Bates, * * * have invented certain new and useful improvements in wire-fence machines, of which the following is a full, clear, and exact description such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same: “The invention relates to the manufacture of woven-wire fences; and the general object in view is to make by machinery, at one operation, in continuous lengths, a complete fencing or fence fabric, consisting of a plurality of longitudinal strand-wires having transverse stay-wires or braces spanning the spaces between the strand-wires, and secured thereto, so as to connect them together, and strengthen and support them. “This style of fencing is not new, and it has already been proposed to make the same by machinery at one continuous operation, but in doing so the transverse stay-wires corresponding to the. spaces between the strand-wires have been divided into sets or groups, the individual wires of which correspond only to alternate spaces between the strand-wires, and these sets or groups have been fed in and secured to the strand-wires alternately, so that in the completed fencing the stay-wires are not continuous across the fabric, but are so located and arranged that at any given point of the fencing only alternate spaces between the strand-wires are crossed, the other spaces not being, crossed by the stay-wires, and the longitudinal wires not being connected at all at that point. - “It is the partic”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. American Steel & Wire Co. of New Jersey v. Denning Wire & Fence Co.