Williams & Wilkins Co v. United States
The Court of Claims, later affirmed by an evenly divided Supreme Court, held that it was a fair use for libraries to photocopy articles for patrons engaged in scientific research.· AI-written
420 U.S. 376 · No. 73-1279 · 1974 term · Burger Court
Decided Feb 19, 1975 · argued Dec 17, 1974
The voteEach side
4–44 on each side
Equally divided: the decision below stands
Affirmed. Williams & Wilkins Co lost.
What this ruling means
Affirmed by an equally divided Court: with the justices split evenly, the decision of the U.S. Court of Claims, Court of Federal Claims stands, but the Court wrote no opinion and the ruling sets no precedent for other cases.
Williams & Wilkins Co was the petitioner, the side that asked the Supreme Court to review the case. “Lost” means the Court did not give that side the result it asked for.
From the Supreme Court Database. A justice who agreed with the result but not the reasoning counts in the majority.
Summary
The opening of the case’s Wikipedia article: what the case was about and what the Court held.
Williams & Wilkins Co. v. United States, 487 F.2d 1345 (Ct. Cl. 1973), was an important intellectual property decision by the federal Court of Claims, later affirmed by a per curiam opinion from an evenly divided United States Supreme Court, with only eight justices voting (Harry Blackmun took no part in the decision of this case). The decision held that it was a fair use for libraries to photocopy articles for use by patrons engaged in scientific research.
This decision, written by Judge Oscar Davis, has been cited as part of the trend in which the courts will take a cautious approach to intellectual property issues raised by the advent of new technology. Rather than enforce the rights of the author articles by placing a prohibition on such copying, the Court in this case held that this was not prohibited by the law as written, leaving it to the United States Congress to address the issue through legislation.
In particular, according to David L. Lange (No Law), the case was a turning point for the doctrine of fair use: while for many decades the standards applied by courts to enforce copyright (or not) had been "arcana", the 1976 Copyright Act codified some fundamental criteria.
Data notes
The text is Wikipedia’s (CC BY-SA 4.0), matched to the case by its citation, docket number or name and year, and is not checked against the opinion. The site keeps the article’s opening section, ending on its last full sentence. The one-sentence summary under the title is the Decisions list’s: Wikipedia’s own ruling sentence, or, tagged “AI-written”, one Claude wrote from this opening.
How the justices voted
The Court split evenly, 4–4, which leaves the lower court’s decision in place without an opinion. Each justice who took part is placed by their Martin–Quinn ideology score for the 1974 term.
Did not take part: Harry Blackmun.
Data notes
Each justice’s vote and what they wrote are from the justice-centered file of the Supreme Court Database. “Wrote a concurrence” means the justice sided with the majority and wrote separately; a justice who dissented in part is counted on the side they took overall. A justice who wrote nothing is listed as joining their side.
Positions are each justice’s Martin–Quinn score for the case’s term, the same scores as the Ideology page: negative is more liberal, positive more conservative. A score sums up a justice’s votes across the whole term, so it says where they usually sit, not why they voted as they did here. The median line is the Court’s median justice that term.
The parties
Who brought the case to the Court, who answered it, and how it got there.
- Petitioner
- Williams & Wilkins CoBookstore, newsstand, printer, bindery, purveyor or distributor of books or magazines
- Respondent
- United StatesUnited States
- Reached the Court by
- Certiorari (the Court chose to hear it)
Data notes
The names are the two sides of the case’s title. The description under each is the Supreme Court Database’s category for that party, in its own wording. The petitioner is the side that asked the Supreme Court to review the decision below. “Why it was taken” appears only when the majority opinion says lower courts disagreed or were unsure about the question; reasons that would fit any case (“to resolve the question presented”, “an important question”) are left out.
The law at issue
The law the Court was asked to apply, and the kind of power it used to decide.
- Decided by
- Supreme Court supervision of lower federal or state courts or original jurisdiction
Data notes
The Supreme Court Database codes the main constitutional provision, statute or court rule each case turned on, and the basis of the decision: judicial review of a federal or state law, interpreting a statute, supervising the lower courts, and so on. A case can rest on more than one. “Overruled” counts only where the majority opinion says so.
Timeline
What happened at the Court and how the case got there, newest first.
- Feb 19, 1975DecidedDecided · Decided 4–4: affirmed. Williams & Wilkins Co lost.
- Dec 17, 1974ArguedArgued · Oral argument before the Court.
- Not datedTaken upTaken up · The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case (certiorari).
- Not datedCourt belowCourt below · Began in and was decided by the U.S. Court of Claims, Court of Federal Claims.
Data notes
From the Supreme Court Database: the court the case began in, the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed and what that court did, how the case came to the Court, and the dates of argument and decision. The database does not date the steps in the lower courts. Court names are the database’s.
Official record
Read the full opinion on Justia, the argument audio on Oyez and Wikipedia. Case data from the Supreme Court Database, Version 2026 Release 01, through the 2025 term.