Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/11pdf/10-545.pdf
Page Number: 21

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

17 

Opinion of the Court 

111 U. S. 53, 57 (1884).21 

Subsequent  actions  confirm  that  Congress  has  not  un-
derstood  the  Copyright  Clause  to  preclude  protection  for
existing  works.  Several  private  bills  restored  the  copy-
rights  of  works  that  previously  had  been  in  the  public 
domain.  See  Act  of  Feb.  19,  1849  (Corson  Act),  ch.  57,  9 
Stat. 763; Act of June 23, 1874 (Helmuth Act), ch. 534, 18 
Stat. 618; Act of Feb. 17, 1898 (Jones Act), ch. 29, 30 Stat.
1396.  These bills were unchallenged in court. 

Analogous  patent  statutes,  however,  were  upheld  in
litigation.22  In 1808, Congress passed a private bill restor-
ing  patent  protection  to  Oliver  Evans’  flour  mill.    When 
Evans  sued  for  infringement,  first  Chief  Justice  Marshall
in  the  Circuit  Court,  Evans  v.  Jordan,  8  F. Cas.  872  (No. 
4,564)  (Va.  1813),  and  then  Justice  Bushrod  Washington
for  this  Court,  Evans  v.  Jordan,  9  Cranch  199  (1815),
upheld  the  restored  patent’s  validity.  After  the  patent’s 
expiration, the Court said, “a general right to use [Evans’]
discovery  was  not  so  vested  in  the  public”  as  to  allow  the
defendant to continue using the machinery, which he had 

—————— 

21 The parties debate the extent to which the First Congress removed 
works  from  the  public  domain.    We  have  held,  however,  that  at  least 
some works protected by the 1790 Act previously lacked protection.  In 
Wheaton v. Peters, 8 Pet. 591 (1834), the Court ruled that before enact-
ment  of  the  1790  Act,  common-law  copyright  protection  expired  upon 
first publication.  Id., at 657, 663.  Thus published works covered by the 
1790  Act  previously  would  have  been  in  the  public  domain  unless 
protected by state statute.  Had the founding generation perceived the
constitutional  boundary  petitioners  advance  today,  the  First  Congress
could  have  designed  a  prospective  scheme  that  left  the  public  domain
undisturbed.  Accord Luck’s Music Library, Inc. v. Gonzales, 407 F. 3d 
1262,  1265  (CADC  2005)  (Section  514  does  not  offend  the  Copyright 
Clause  because,  inter  alia,  “evidence  from  the  First  Congress,”  as
confirmed by Wheaton, “points toward constitutionality.”). 

22 Here, as in Eldred, “[b]ecause the Clause  empowering Congress to 
confer  copyrights  also  authorizes  patents,  congressional  practice  with
respect to patents informs our inquiry.”  537 U. S., at 201.