Charles Clifton, the claimant and plaintiff in error, brought a case before the United States Supreme Court. He argued that he was entitled to compensation for damages caused by an act of Congress which authorized construction of a road through his property. The court held that while it sympathized with Clifton's plight, it could not grant him relief because there was no provision in the Constitution or any other law authorizing such compensation. Furthermore, they noted that if Congress had intended to provide such relief then they would have done so explicitly when passing their legislation. As a result of this ruling, Charles Clifton did not receive any monetary compensation from the government for his losses due to their actions on his land.

In the case of Charles Clifton v. The United States, the Supreme Court was asked to decide whether a patent granted by Congress for an invention should be considered valid even though it had been previously used in public without any compensation or recognition given to the inventor. The majority opinion held that since there was no evidence of prior use, and because Congress had issued a patent for this invention, it must be assumed that they intended to grant exclusive rights over its use and thus the patent should remain valid. However, Justice McLean dissented from this decision on two grounds: firstly he argued that if an individual has already made public use of their own invention then they are entitled to some form of compensation; secondly he contended that patents can only be granted when something is truly novel - not merely improved upon existing technology - and therefore in such cases where prior knowledge exists but is not documented then these inventions cannot receive patents as per Congressional intent.