Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-877_dc8f.pdf
Page Number: 4.0

Cite as:  589 U. S. ____ (2020) 

1 

Opinion of the Court 

NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the 
preliminary  print  of  the  United  States  Reports.  Readers  are  requested  to 
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that 
corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

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No. 18–877 
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FREDERICK L. ALLEN, ET AL., PETITIONERS v. ROY 
A. COOPER, III, GOVERNOR OF NORTH 
CAROLINA, ET AL. 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 
APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT 

[March 23, 2020]

 JUSTICE KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court. 
In  two  basically  identical  statutes  passed  in  the  early
1990s, Congress sought to strip the States of their sovereign 
immunity  from  patent  and  copyright  infringement  suits.
Not long after, this Court held in Florida Prepaid Postsec-
ondary Ed. Expense Bd. v. College Savings Bank, 527 U. S. 
627 (1999), that the patent statute lacked a valid constitu-
tional basis.  Today, we take up the copyright statute.  We 
find that our decision in Florida Prepaid compels the same 
conclusion. 

I 

In  1717,  the  pirate  Edward  Teach,  better  known  as
Blackbeard, captured a French slave ship in the West In-
dies  and  renamed  her  Queen  Anne’s  Revenge.  The  vessel 
became  his  flagship.    Carrying  some  40  cannons  and  300 
men, the Revenge took many prizes as she sailed around the 
Caribbean and up the North American coast.  But her reign
over  those  seas  was  short-lived.    In  1718,  the  ship  ran 
aground on a sandbar a mile off Beaufort, North Carolina. 
Blackbeard  and  most  of  his  crew  escaped  without  harm.