Railway Company v. Sayles’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

183 federal appellate · 75 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 513 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Courts should regard with jealousy and disfavor any attempts to enlarge the scope of an application once filed, or of a patent once granted, the effect of which would be to enable the patentee to appropriate other inventions made prior to such alteration, or to appropriate that which has, in the meantime, gone into public use.””

   19 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Kittle v. Hall · Michigan Cent. R. v. Consolidated Car-Heating Co.

2. ““A party wlio invents a new machine never used before, and procures letters patent therefore, acquires a monopoly as against all merely formal variations thereof ; but if the advance towards the thing desired is gradual, and proceeds step by step, so that no one can claim the complete thing, each inventor is entitled only to his own specific form of device.””

   13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Morley Sewing Machine Co. v. Lancaster · Corser v. Brattleboro Overall Co.

3. “and one on which stress is laid in the original application”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Pennwalt Corporation, Appellant/cross-Appellee v. Durand-Wayland, Inc., Appellee/cross-Appellant