Key Factor for Increasing Page Rank
 

Link popularity refers to the number and quality of links that point to your web site. Increasing your website’s link popularity is essential. A web page that has links from many pages that have a high Google PageRank receives a higher rank itself.

I would like to clarify your point, as you said that backlink from the websites with higher Pagerank helps to increase the page rank of a website, which is linking to that website is not correct.

As we all know Google will not be updating its Pagerank toolbar, so this technique will not help in any way. Whereas, Backlink from the website with higher domain authority will help to increase the authority of your website.