Sewall v. Jones’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

36 federal appellate · 14 district · 3 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 105 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Tlie omission to mention in the specification something which contributes only to the degree of benefit, provided the apparatus would work beneficially and be worth adopting without it, is not fatal, while the omission of what is known to be necessary to the enjoyment of the invention is fatal.””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Caverly v. Deere · Bracewell v. Passaic Print Works

2. ““To constitute an infringement, tlie thing used by the defendant must be such as substantially to embody the patentee’s mode of operation, and thereby to attain the same kind of result as was reached by his invention. It is not necessary that the defendant should employ the plaintiff’s invention to as good advantage as he employed it, or that the result should be the same in degree; but it must be the same in kind. * * * In an action for infringement, the first question is, whether the machine used by the defendant is substantially, in its principle and mode of operation, like the plaintiff’s. If so, it is an infringement to use it. * * * If he has taken the same plan and applied it to the same purpose, notwithstanding he may have varied the process of the application, his 'manufacture will’ be substantially identical with that of the patentee.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Peerless Rubber Mfg. Co. v. White

3. ““To infringe a patent it is not necessary that the thing patented should he adopted in every particular. If the patent is adopted substantially by the defendants, they are guilty of infringement. * ⅝ * The question of infringement depends upon whether the plan which the defendant has employed is in substance the same as the plaintiff's, and whether all the differences which have been introduced are not differences in circumstances not material, and whether it is not in substance and effect a colorable evasion of the plaintiff’s patent. * * * It is not necessary that defendant should employ plaintiff’s invention to as good advantage as he employed it, or that the result should be the same in degree.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Commercial Acetylene Co. v. Avery Portable Lighting Co.