In the case of Diamond Glue Company v. United States Glue Company in 1902, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt with a dispute over patent rights for an improved method of manufacturing glue. The Diamond Glue Company claimed that they had exclusive rights to this new process and accused the United States Glue Company of infringing on their patent by using it without permission or compensation. However, upon review, the court found that while there were similarities between both methods, there was no direct infringement as each company's process involved different steps and materials to achieve similar results. Therefore, despite having a valid patent for their specific method of making glue, Diamond could not prevent others from developing or using alternative methods achieving similar outcomes.

In the dissenting opinion for Diamond Glue Company v. United States Glue Company, it was argued that the majority's decision to uphold a lower court ruling in favor of U.S. Glue Co., which had accused Diamond of infringing on its patent rights, was unjustified. The dissenting justices believed that there were significant differences between the two companies' processes for producing glue and thus no infringement occurred. They pointed out that while both methods involved treating animal parts with acid and heat to extract collagen (the main ingredient in glue), they differed significantly in other respects such as temperature control and timing, which could affect product quality substantially. Therefore, they contended that these variations should have been enough to distinguish one process from another under patent law standards at the time.