In the 1893 case of Seabury v. Am Ende, a dispute arose over patent rights for an invention related to oil refining process improvements. The plaintiff, Seabury, alleged that he had been granted a patent in 1871 and that the defendant, Am Ende was infringing upon his rights by using this patented method without permission or compensation. However, the defendant argued that they were not infringing on any valid patent as their method was different from what was described in Seabury's claim and also because they believed Seabury's original patent to be invalid due to lack of novelty at its time of issuance. The Supreme Court ruled against Seabury stating that his claims lacked specificity about how exactly his invention improved upon existing methods which made it impossible for others skilled in the art to replicate or improve upon it without undue experimentation - a requirement under US Patent Law. Furthermore, evidence showed similar processes existed prior to his claimed invention date thus rendering it unpatentable due to lack of novelty.

In the dissenting opinion for Seabury v. Am Ende, it was argued that the majority's decision to uphold a patent on an improvement of an existing product was incorrect. The dissenting justices believed that the supposed "improvement" did not meet the standard of novelty required by patent law and therefore should not have been granted protection. They contended that merely changing minor details or proportions in a known machine does not constitute invention or discovery as defined by U.S. Patent Law, unless such changes produce new and useful results which were previously unattainable with older versions of said machine. In this case, they found no evidence suggesting any significant improvements had resulted from these alterations; thus, they disagreed with granting legal protections under patent laws for such modifications.