Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/McGhee et al. v. Le Sage & Co., Inc.


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete. Spartaz Humbug! 15:57, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

McGhee et al. v. Le Sage & Co., Inc.
AfDs for this article: 
 * Articles for deletion/James William McGhee
 * Articles for deletion/James William McGhee (2nd nomination)
 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

The article was originally a vanity bio written by a family member. It still clearly has no notability, after another year of notice. See its talk page and history. Dicklyon (talk) 03:27, 15 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete I really doubt I'll ever hear this in any American history class. It never had any huge impact on history. I find this to be non-notable. 7OA   chat  03:31, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete. An unsuccessful fight for a patent on a drapery hook? Time to close the curtain on this one. Clarityfiend (talk) 04:28, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete - I am unable to find significant coverage for this case, including any sign that it has become a meaningful legal precdent. That said, thanks to Richard Arthur Norton for the excellent work he's done on trying to improve this article, and it's a little disappointing that the nominator didn't see fit to advise him of this deletion debate.  (Now fixed.) - DustFormsWords (talk) 05:42, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep based on Mkativerata's sources here - - DustFormsWords (talk) 07:59, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Which sources?


 * Keep Enough citations in texts (have a look through gbooks) to suggest that this case is commonly cited in support of legal principle. I find it highly unlikely that appellate cases are unnotable as an appellate case determines a question of law. It is in my view notable and has been covered in reliable sources. I'm not sure what policy the first two delete !votes in this AfD are relying on. Unless any actual reasoning can be provided they ought to be discounted. --Mkativerata (talk) 07:46, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, Mkativerata, I looked in Gbooks here and I only see one book, with no suggestion that it's significant coverage. Could you link the sources you're referring to? - DustFormsWords (talk) 07:52, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * This was my search. I think you have to remove the punctuation guff from the search to get a proper result. Many of the results are case reporters not texts, but there are numerous texts there. The number of case reporters suggests that the case has been widely cited in other cases, which is another indication of notability. --Mkativerata (talk) 07:54, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, vote changed accordingly. - DustFormsWords (talk) 07:59, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Good find. Add a ref or two and we'll no longer be tempted to nominate it for deletion.  Dicklyon (talk) 14:43, 15 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Mkativerata: which of these sources do you believe convey notability? Most of them are simply unselective compilations of reported cases; one cite in a string cite; or false hits.  TJRC (talk) 01:26, 16 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Generally that's right but buried in the hits are a number of texts. The texts include, (an annotated statute), . , , . Now of course they're all hidden so I can't see what the texts say about the case or the context in which the case is cited. But the mere fact of the citations is sufficient for me to conclude that the case stands for something; otherwise it wouldn't be cited at all. I am not satisfied the article should be deleted: conceivably with access to these sources someone could write a proper article. --Mkativerata (talk) 01:31, 16 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Here's why I'm not convinced by these cites. There are six sources here; at the moment Wikipedia numbers them [3]-[8].  I'll use that numbering, with the caveat that if some links get added above, or a reader is reading this transcluded in another article with links, the numbers won't match up.


 * [4] and [7] are annotated statutes. This is a very small deal.  Basically, if a case ever cites a statute, the annotated statute includes a cross-reference to the case that cited it, usually with a sentence that describes how the statute was used in the case.  Every case that refers to a statute (and pretty much every case does) will show up in the annotated statute.  This is no indication of notability.


 * [5] is the USPQ, a law reporter. The USPQ simply reprints every published opinion on intellectual property law, with no selectivity (other than that it relates to IP).  This is no indication of notability.


 * [3] and [8] are textbooks. Actually, [8], "Walker on Patents" I believe is a hornbook.  Works like this cite to many, many cases, most of which are not notable.  To give you an example, the index of cases in the text I use for my Copyright Law class (Joyce, et al. Copyright Law) is 16 pages long, and indexes about 1000 cases.  Only a fraction (I'd guess 5%) are notable and dealt with with any significant detail in the text.  Chisum on Patents, has a whopping 602 pages of case citations, my estimate being some 24,000 cases being cited.  Obviously, not all of these cases are notable.


 * [6] is a published article, a 1954 article published in the Journal of the Patent Office Society. I can't guess why it was cited, whether it was for a substantive reason or just one more case in a string of cases being cited.


 * The upshot is that, there really is no reason to assume that merely being cited, without an understanding of why a case is being cited, indicates notability. The vast majority of citations are not indications of notability. TJRC (talk) 01:01, 17 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment. Generally speaking, merely being cited as precedent in other cases is not really enough to confer notability on a reported case.  More than thirty volumes of the Federal Reporter current series are published each year.  Each volume reports around 200-250 cases with published opinions.  Each opinion cites dozens of cases in itself.  Appearance in this medium generally does not confer notability on the underlying litigation or on each case reported or cited; there's just too many of 'em.  I have no idea whether this particular case is considered a leading case in patent law, the sort of thing like Marbury v. Madison, Chandelor v. Lopus, Pierson v. Post, or Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co. that's widely discussed because of the importance of the principle decided in it.  - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 15:26, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 15:38, 15 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete. Non-notable case setting no significant precedent.  From one of the prior AFDs, " a 55 page ALR article which has a single paragraph on the McGhee case in a broader discussion on publication." That citation was nothing more than one case a catalog of cases in that area of law.  The case is not notable.  All the hits found by Mkativerata seem to be just lists of cases, the equivalent of a telephone directory.  Article created by User:Mjmcghee as James William McGhee, see, apparently in tribute to an ancestor. TJRC (talk) 01:23, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Additional comment (paraphrase of my earlier post in the talk page):
 * I tried to look this case up in Chisum on Patents. For those of you who don't do or plan to do patent law for a living, Chisum is the leading secondary authority (i.e., not a primary authority like the statute or court cases themselves) on United States patent law.  It's 17 volumes long and is an extensive discussion of almost all important points of patent law.  This case is never mentioned.  Not once.  This would be unthinkable for a notable patent case.  Chisum cites approximately 24,000 cases; and this case is not one of them.


 * A google search of the case name, in various forms, only turns up this article. In fact, that's how I initially tried to find the case citation, and was surprised to find such a dry hole.  The only way I could get the case cite was to look up the patent number in Shepherd's.


 * A google search for the citation turns up nothing but mirrors of this article. This is pretty surprising.  I'd expect a few hits.  This means that this case is very rarely cited; which is another way of saying it's not very notable.


 * A google scholar search for the cite turns up only three hits. A notable case would have a lot more than that.  For example, over 900 hits for the cite to In re Bilski:.


 * As a Ninth Circuit patent case, this is not all that exciting. All patent appellate law now comes from the Federal Circuit, and before the Federal Circuit was around, from the U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals for many years.


 * There is not a single mention of this case in the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure. The MPEP cites about 1,700-1,800 cases, and it doesn't cite this one.  In all fairness, the MPEP tends to cite only cases applicable to current practice, and not a whole lot of cases of this vintage remain relevant.  But see the Chisum discussion above.  TJRC (talk) 01:34, 16 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete. The most reliable search term for the case is probably "32 F.2d 875", the standard citation form of the case, the part that has a standard punctuation.  Google Scholar finds 3 citations in law review articles, none of which appear to have this case as a primary topic.  (For those who have never experienced the particular sort of competitive drudgery that is law review work, exhaustive cataloging of marginally relevant case law is considered a promising sign that you have the meticulous and tedious mindset desired for judicial clerkships and the paper mills of big city firms.  In other words, this ain't significant coverage).  Books coverage is similarly scanty: again, it's catalogued in annotated statute books and similar treatises that attempt to compile all the cases referencing a particular statute, as well as some specialized reporters.  This case would appear not to have significant coverage in secondary sources. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 02:27, 16 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment - Do any of those calling for a Keep have any background in the area to which this article pertains, i.e., law, especially patent law? For example, an attorney (especially a patent attorney), or a law student?  Because to this patent attorney, this patent law case is slam-dunk not notable.  TJRC (talk) 03:26, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm a practising lawyer, but I recognise you have more specific experience here than me. I am genuinely reconsidering my position. --Mkativerata (talk) 04:09, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Law but not patent law, here (and not US law). I saw the wide variety of mentions from Mkativerata's search and thought it unlikely the case would be so widely quoted unless it was meaningfully illustrative of a legal proposition. - DustFormsWords (talk) 04:20, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * US lawyer, but no real patent law experience. I also cite checked this on my online research service and found that the case has been cited precisely three times in later Federal decisions: Winstead-Hardware Mfg. Co. v. Samson-United Corp., 37 F.Supp. 1002 (S.D.N.Y. 1941); Tampax, Inc. v. Personal Products Corp., 38 F.Supp. 663 (E.D.N.Y. 1941); and Cox v. Doherty, 44 F.Supp. 357 (S.D.Cal. 1942).  These meager citations are not encouraging for the significance of this particular case as precedent. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 19:40, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * For those who don't recognize U.S. legal citation format, all three of these cases are from the federal district court level, i.e., the lowest level in the federal judiciary. Not a single reference to this case in any subsequent appellate decision, not even within the Ninth Circuit where the case was decided; and the Ninth Circuit continued to have appellate patent jurisdiction until the establishment of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in 1982. TJRC (talk) 01:13, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.