In the case of Ewing, Commissioner of Patents v. United States ex rel. Fowler Car Company in 1916, the Supreme Court ruled on a patent dispute involving an automobile design. The Fowler Car Company had applied for a patent for its car design but was denied by the Patent Office due to lack of novelty and non-obviousness - key requirements for obtaining a patent. The company appealed this decision to the Supreme Court arguing that their invention was indeed novel and not obvious to those skilled in automotive engineering at that time. The court upheld the decision made by Patent Office's commissioner, Mr.Ewing stating that there were no new elements or combinations present in Fowler’s application which could be considered as inventive steps over existing knowledge within public domain at that time period; hence it did not meet criteria required under U.S.Patent law . This ruling reinforced importance given towards ensuring true innovation while granting patents thereby preventing monopolization based on trivial modifications over already known inventions.

The dissenting opinion in the case of Ewing v. United States ex rel. Fowler Car Company argued that the patent application should not have been rejected on grounds of lack of novelty or non-obviousness, as it was by the Commissioner of Patents. The dissenting justices believed that there were significant differences between the design presented in this patent and previous designs, which made it a novel invention worthy of protection under patent law. They also disagreed with majority's interpretation and application of legal standards for determining obviousness, arguing that these standards had been applied too strictly in this case to deny a deserving inventor his rightful claim to a patent.