In the case of Federal Trade Commission v. Curtis Publishing Company, 1922, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Curtis Publishing Company. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had accused Curtis Publishing Company of unfair competition due to its practice of selling magazine subscriptions below cost price to eliminate competitors and create a monopoly. However, the court found that this was not an unlawful restraint on trade or commerce under Section 5 of the FTC Act as it did not have a detrimental effect on competition but rather stimulated it by offering lower prices for consumers. Furthermore, there was no evidence showing that these practices would lead to monopolization or substantial lessening of competition in future. Therefore, while such practices may be deemed unethical from a business standpoint they were not illegal under existing antitrust laws at that time.

In the dissenting opinion for Federal Trade Commission v. Curtis Publishing Company, Justice McReynolds disagreed with the majority's interpretation of "unfair methods of competition." He argued that this phrase should be narrowly interpreted to only include practices which directly harm competitors and not those that merely deceive consumers. According to him, Congress intended for the FTC Act to regulate business competition and protect businesses from unfair competitive practices rather than protecting consumers from deceptive advertising or other fraudulent business practices. Therefore, he believed that it was beyond the scope of FTC's authority under its enabling statute to prohibit false advertisements unless they also harmed competitors in some way. This narrow interpretation would limit FTC’s power significantly compared to what was upheld by majority ruling.