Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/11pdf/10-545.pdf
Page Number: 23

Cite as:  565 U. S. ____ (2012) 

19 

Opinion of the Court 

41 Stat. 368; Act of Sept. 25, 1941, ch. 421, 55 Stat. 732.24 

Pointing  to  dictum  in  Graham  v.  John  Deere  Co.  of 
Kansas City, 383 U. S. 1 (1966), petitioners would have us
look  past  this  history.    In  Graham,  we  stated  that  “Con-
gress  may  not  authorize  the  issuance  of  patents  whose 
effects  are  to  remove  existent  knowledge  from  the  public 
domain,  or  to  restrict  free  access  to  materials  already
available.”  Id.,  at  6;  post,  at  15.  But  as  we  explained  in 
Eldred,  this  passage  did  not  speak  to  the  constitutional 
limits  on  Congress’  copyright  and  patent  authority.    Ra-
ther, it “addressed an invention’s very eligibility for patent 
protection.”  537 U. S., at 202, n. 7. 

Installing  a  federal  copyright  system  and  ameliorating 
the  interruptions  of  global  war,  it  is  true,  presented  Con-
gress  with  extraordinary  situations.    Yet  the  TRIPS  ac-
cord, leading the United States to comply in full measure 
with Berne, was also a signal event.  See supra, at 7–8; cf. 
Eldred, 537 U. S., at 259, 264–265 (BREYER, J., dissenting) 
(acknowledging  importance  of  international  uniformity 
advanced by U. S. efforts to conform to the Berne Conven-
tion).  Given the authority  we hold Congress  has, we will
not  second-guess  the  political  choice  Congress  made  be-
tween  leaving  the  public  domain  untouched  and  embrac-
ing Berne unstintingly.  Cf. id., at 212–213. 

—————— 

24 Legislation of this order, petitioners argue, is best understood as an
exercise of Congress’ power to remedy excusable neglect.  Even so, the 
remedy  sheltered  creations  that,  absent  congressional  action,  would 
have been open to free exploitation.  Such action, according to petition-
ers’  dominant  argument,  see  supra,  at  13–14,  is  ever  and  always 
impermissible.    Accord  Luck’s  Music  Library,  407  F. 3d,  at  1265–1266 
(“Plaintiffs urge that [the 1790 Act and the wartime legislation] simply
extended  the  time  limits  for  filing  and  [did]  not  purport  to  modify  the
prohibition  on  removing  works  from  the  public  domain.    But  to  the 
extent  that  potential  copyright  holders  failed  to  satisfy  procedural 
requirements,  such  works”—like  those  protected  by  §514—“would
necessarily have already entered the public domain . . . .”).