In the case of Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Co. v. Walker et al., Doing Business as Depthograph Co., 1946, the U.S Supreme Court ruled in favor of Halliburton, reversing a previous decision by the Circuit Court of Appeals which had upheld a patent infringement claim against them. The patent in question was for an oil well surveying device known as a "depthograph". The court found that while this device did offer new and useful improvements to existing technology, it did not meet the criteria for invention required under patent law because it merely combined pre-existing elements without creating anything novel or non-obvious from their combination. Therefore, its use by Halliburton did not constitute infringement.

The dissenting opinion in the case of Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Co. v. Walker et al., Doing Business as Depthograph Co., argued that the patent at issue was not an invention but rather a discovery, and thus should not be invalidated due to prior use or knowledge by others. The dissent emphasized that while it is true that patents are granted for inventions, they can also cover discoveries if those discoveries meet certain criteria such as novelty and utility. In this case, the patented device - a tool for determining depth in oil wells - met these criteria because it provided a new and useful method of accomplishing an old result (measuring depth). Therefore, even though similar devices had been used before, none were able to achieve results with the same degree of accuracy or efficiency as the patented device. As such, according to this view point ,the patent should have been upheld.