John Fitch, appellant, brought a case against Edward Creighton in the Supreme Court. The dispute was over an invention of Fitch's that he claimed to have patented and licensed to Creighton for use on his steamboat line. However, when the license expired after two years, Creighton continued using the invention without paying any additional fees or royalties. In response to this breach of contract by Creighton, Fitch sued him for damages incurred due to lost profits from not being able to license out his invention further. The court found in favor of Fitch and awarded him $2,000 as compensation for lost profits caused by Creightons' infringement upon his patent rights. This decision established precedent that inventors are entitled to receive just compensation if their patents are infringed upon by others who benefit financially from it without permission or payment

In the case of John Fitch v. Edward Creighton, the Supreme Court was tasked with determining whether a patent issued to Fitch for an invention related to steamboats should be invalidated due to prior use by another inventor. The majority opinion found that there had been no prior public use or sale of this invention and thus upheld the validity of Fitch's patent. However, in his dissenting opinion Justice Curtis argued that while it may have been true that there had not yet been any public use or sale of this particular invention, other inventors had already used similar inventions which were based on principles previously known in science and engineering. Therefore he concluded that these earlier inventions constituted "prior art" which rendered Fitch's patent invalid under existing law at the time.