In the Borden Company v. Borella case of 1944, the U.S Supreme Court ruled in favor of Borella, an employee who had invented a process for preserving milk while working at The Borden Company. The company claimed ownership over the invention under employment contract terms that stated any inventions made during employment belonged to them. However, it was determined that this clause only applied if the invention was related to his assigned duties or tasks he was hired to perform - which wasn't true in this case as inventing new processes wasn’t part of his job description. Therefore, despite being employed by The Borden Company when he developed it, because creating such innovations were not within his specific work responsibilities and there were no explicit agreements about inventions outside those responsibilities belonging to the employer; Mr.Borella retained rights over his invention.

In the dissenting opinion for Borden Company v. Borella, Justice Robert H. Jackson argued that the majority's decision to uphold a patent on an already known substance was incorrect and set a dangerous precedent. He contended that granting patents for discoveries of new uses or properties in old substances would discourage scientific research and impede progress by allowing monopolies over knowledge which should be freely available to all scientists. Furthermore, he pointed out that such patents could potentially stifle competition as companies might hesitate to conduct their own research into these substances due to fear of infringement lawsuits from patent holders. Thus, according to Justice Jackson, this case represented a significant departure from established principles of patent law which required inventions to be both novel and non-obvious.