In the 1913 case of Woodward Company v. Hurd, the United States Supreme Court dealt with a dispute over patent rights. The Woodward Company claimed that Mr. Hurd had infringed upon their patented design for an electrical switchboard apparatus and sought damages as well as an injunction to prevent further infringement. However, Mr. Hurd argued that he was not infringing on any valid patent because the original inventor of the device in question had sold it without applying for a patent first, thus placing it into public domain before Woodward obtained its own patents. The court ruled in favor of Mr.Hurd stating that once an invention is sold or used publicly without being protected by a patent, it becomes part of public domain and cannot be later patented by someone else; even if they were unaware at time of application about prior use or sale.

In the dissenting opinion for Woodward Company v. Hurd, it was argued that the majority's decision to uphold a contract between two parties despite one party's misrepresentation of facts contradicted established legal principles. The dissent contended that if a party is induced into entering an agreement based on false information provided by another party, then such a contract should be deemed voidable at the option of the deceived party. In this case, Woodward Company had been misled about certain patent rights which formed part of their contractual obligations with Hurd. The dissenting justices believed that since these misrepresented facts were material to Woodward’s decision to enter into the contract and they relied upon them in good faith, they should have had every right to rescind or avoid fulfilling those obligations without penalty once discovering this deception.