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Page Number: 9

6 

ALLEN v. COOPER 

Opinion of the Court 

precedent, forecloses each of Allen’s arguments. 

A 
Congress has power under Article I “[t]o promote the Pro-
gress  of  Science  and  useful  Arts,  by  securing  for  limited 
Times  to  Authors  and  Inventors  the  exclusive  Right  to
their respective Writings and Discoveries.”  §8, cl. 8.  That 
provision—call it the Intellectual Property Clause—enables 
Congress  to  grant  both  copyrights  and  patents.    And  the 
monopoly rights so given impose a corresponding duty (i.e., 
not to infringe) on States no less than private parties.  See 
Goldstein v. California, 412 U. S. 546, 560 (1973). 

In  Allen’s  view,  Congress’s  authority  to  abrogate  sover-
eign  immunity  from  copyright  suits  naturally  follows. 
Abrogation is the single best—or maybe, he says, the only—
way for Congress to “secur[e]” a copyright holder’s “exclu-
sive Right[s]” as against a State’s intrusion.  See Brief for 
Petitioners 20 (quoting Art. I, §8, cl. 8).  So, Allen contends, 
the authority to take that step must fall within the Article 
I grant of power to protect intellectual property. 

The problem for Allen is that this Court has already re-
jected his theory.  The Intellectual Property Clause, as just 
noted, covers copyrights and patents alike.  So it was the 
first place the Florida Prepaid Court looked when deciding 
whether the Patent Remedy Act validly stripped the States
of  immunity  from  infringement  suits. 
In  doing  so,  we
acknowledged the reason for Congress to put “States on the 
same  footing  as  private  parties”  in  patent  litigation.    527 
U. S., at 647.  It was, just as Allen says here, to ensure “uni-
form,  surefire  protection”  of  intellectual  property.    Reply
Brief 10.  That was a “proper Article I concern,” we allowed. 
527 U. S., at 648.  But still, we said, Congress could not use 
its  Article  I  power  over  patents  to  remove  the  States’  im-
munity.  We  based  that  conclusion  on  Seminole  Tribe  v. 
Florida, decided three years earlier.  There, the Court had 
held that “Article I cannot be used to circumvent” the limits