Schwinn Bicycle Company v. Ross Bicycles Inc’s Empirical Analysis
870 F.2d 1176 · 1989
Citation profile
18 federal appellate · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 91 later decisions — most recently March 2015 · most notably Abbott Laboratories v. Mead Johnson & Co. (1992), Ty, Inc. v. The Jones Group, Inc. (2001)
18 federal appellate · 2 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)) · 28 U.S.C. § 636
Relies on Ohio Bureau of Employment Services v. Hodory · United States v. Raddatz · Mathews v. Weber · Roland Machinery Company v. Dresser Industries Inc · Union Carbide Corp. v. Ever-Ready 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 91 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]he plaintiff need not prove each and every factor in order to prevail. However, the converse is also true; neither is it required that the defendant refute each and every factor. The weight and totality of the most important factors in each case will ultimately be determinative of the likelihood of confusion, not whether the majority of the factors tilt the scale in favor of one side or the other.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[f]or purposes of a defense against trade dress infringement, ‘functional’ means not simply that the feature serves a function, but that the feature is necessary to afford a competitor the means to compete effectively.” 870 F.2d at 1188; see also W.T. Rogers Co. v. Keene, 778 F.2d 334, 339 (7th Cir.1985) (”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“feature is functional if it is one that is costly to design around or to do without, rather than one that is costly to have.”
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.