In the case of Dayton Rubber Co. v. Cordovan Associates, Inc., 1960, the U.S Supreme Court was tasked with deciding on a patent dispute between two companies over tire manufacturing technology. The plaintiff, Dayton Rubber Company claimed that Cordovan Associates had infringed upon their patented method for making tires and sought damages as well as an injunction to prevent further use of their invention by Cordovan. However, in its defense, Cordovan argued that they were not infringing because they used a different process than what was described in Dayton's patent claim. The court ruled in favor of Dayton Rubber Company stating that even though there might be slight differences between both methods; if one performs substantially the same function in substantially the same way to obtain the same result then it is considered infringement under doctrine of equivalents - a legal rule which allows courts to hold defendants liable for patent infringement even when they do not fall within literal scope but are equivalent thereto. This decision reinforced protection rights granted by patents and emphasized importance of substance over formality when determining whether or not an invention has been unlawfully copied or used without permission from original inventor(s).

The dissenting opinion in the Dayton Rubber Co. v. Cordovan Associates, Inc., case argued that the majority's decision to uphold a lower court's ruling was incorrect because it failed to consider important aspects of patent law and its application. The dissent believed that the plaintiff, Dayton Rubber Company, should have been allowed to present evidence showing they had not infringed on Cordovan Associates' patent rights as claimed by them. They also disagreed with how the majority interpreted certain technical terms related to tire manufacturing processes involved in this dispute which led them concluding an infringement occurred when there might be none if properly understood within industry context and standards. Furthermore, they felt that this interpretation could potentially stifle innovation by discouraging companies from developing new products or improving existing ones for fear of litigation over alleged patent violations based on such broad interpretations.