The Cumberland Glass Manufacturing Company v. De Witt and Company case in 1914 revolved around a patent dispute. The plaintiff, Cumberland Glass Manufacturing Co., alleged that the defendant, De Witt & Co., had infringed on their patented design for a glass stopper used in bottles containing carbonated beverages. However, the Supreme Court ruled against Cumberland Glass Manufacturing Co., stating that they did not have exclusive rights to this particular design as it was not new or novel but rather an obvious improvement of existing designs already known and used by others skilled in the art prior to its supposed invention by them. Therefore, no infringement could be found since there was no valid patent to infringe upon.

The dissenting opinion in the case of Cumberland Glass Manufacturing Company v. De Witt and Company argued that the majority's decision to uphold a lower court ruling, which found that Cumberland had infringed upon De Witt's patent for a glass-making machine, was incorrect. The dissenting justices believed that there were significant differences between the two machines at issue, enough to conclude that no infringement had occurred. They pointed out specific elements in both designs and how they functioned differently from each other. Furthermore, they disagreed with the majority’s interpretation of what constituted an “invention” under patent law; arguing instead for a more narrow definition where only truly novel ideas would be protected by patents. This disagreement over legal standards led them to believe that De Witt’s design did not meet this threshold and thus should not have been granted patent protection in the first place.