The U.S. Supreme Court case Wine Railway Appliance Co. v. Enterprise Railway Equipment Co., 1935, revolved around a patent dispute between the two companies over railway car brake equipment technology. The Wine Railway Appliance Company claimed that the Enterprise Railway Equipment Company had infringed on their patented design for an automatic slack adjuster - a device used to maintain consistent brake pressure in train cars as they wear down over time and use. However, after reviewing the evidence presented by both parties, the court ruled in favor of Enterprise stating that there was no infringement because their product did not utilize any new or novel elements from Wine's patent but rather relied on pre-existing technologies already available in public domain at the time of its development.

In the dissenting opinion for Wine Railway Appliance Co. v. Enterprise Railway Equipment Co., it was argued that the majority's decision to uphold a lower court ruling, which found in favor of Enterprise on grounds of patent infringement by Wine, was incorrect. The dissenting justices believed that there were significant differences between the devices patented by both companies and thus no infringement had occurred. They pointed out that while both devices served similar functions - namely, facilitating railway car coupling - they achieved this through different mechanisms and designs. Therefore, according to these justices' interpretation of patent law principles, since Wine’s device did not copy or use any unique aspects from Enterprise’s invention but instead used a distinct method to achieve its function; it should not be considered an infringement upon Enterprise's patent rights.