In accordance with the doctrine of federalism, the American constitutional system divides privilege and power between the central national government and the individual states. Significant constitutional conflicts often arise, however, where the legitimate exercise of power at one level is incompatible with the legitimate exercise of power at the other. The convergence of state sovereign immunity and federal intellectual property law provides one example of the complicated interaction between the powers of the federal government, the state, and the individual, and the inevitable conflicts that arise as all three attempt to exercise their established powers and rights. The Eleventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, with limited exceptions, bars an individual from suing a state under federal law without the state's consent. While states may consent to suit by waiving the privilege of sovereign immunity, in limited circumstances Congress may also abrogate, or overrule, that immunity by passing a statute pursuant to the enforcement power under Â§ 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. There are times, however, when a state may decide against waiving its sovereign immunity and Congress is unable to abrogate sovereign immunity pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment. In these situations, an individual is barred from suing a state for monetary damages for a violation of federal law. Intellectual property has emerged as one area where Congress has been unsuccessful in abrogating sovereign immunity, and states have not expressly chosen to waive their constitutionally protected privilege of immunity. Therefore, individuals may not recover damages under federal patent, copyright, or trademark law for infringements perpetrated by a state entity. Intellectual property (IP) law has several major branches, applicable to different types of subject matter, including the following: copyright (original artistic and literary works of authorship), patent (inventions of processes, machines, manufactures, and compositions of matter that are useful, new, and nonobvious), and trademark (commercial symbols and commercial names). The source of federal copyright and patent law originates with the copyright and patent clause of the U.S. Constitution, which authorizes Congress to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." By contrast, the constitutional basis for federal trademark law is the power to regulate interstate commerce under the commerce clause. The Copyright Act, Patent Act, and the Trademark Act of 1946 (conventionally known as the Lanham Act) provide legal protection for intellectual property against unauthorized use, theft, and other violations of the rights granted by those statutes to the IP owner. The Copyright Act provides copyright owners with the exclusive right to control reproduction, distribution, public performance, and display of their copyrighted works. The Patent Act grants patent holders the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling their patented invention throughout the United States, or importing the invention into the United States. The Lanham Act allows sellers and producers of goods and services to prevent a competitor from (1) using any counterfeit, copy, or imitation of their trademarks (that have been registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office) in connection with the sale of any goods or services in a way that is likely to cause confusion, mistake, or deception, or (2) using in commercial advertising any word, term, name, symbol, or device, or any false or misleading designation of origin or false or misleading description or representation of fact, which (a) is likely to cause confusion, mistake, or deception as to affiliation, connection, or association, or as to origin, sponsorship, or approval, of his or her goods, services, or commercial activities by another person, or (b) misrepresents the nature, characteristics, qualities, or geographic origin of his or her or another person's goods, services, or commercial activities. In addition, the Lanham Act grants to owners of "famous" trademarks the right to seek injunctive relief against another person's use in commerce of a mark or trade name if such use causes dilution by blurring or tarnishing the distinctive quality of the famous trademark. Private individuals and organizations may own various forms of IP, either because they are the creators of such IP and have not relinquished their rights by assignment, or they have acquired legal title to the IP. Federal, state, and local government entities also may own or claim a property interest in certain patents, copyrights, and trademarks, with the notable exception that the Copyright Act categorically excludes copyright protection for any work of the U. S. government, although the federal government may receive and hold copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise. Generally speaking, the use of a patented invention, copyrighted work, or trademark without the authorization of the IP owner constitutes infringement. The IP owner may initiate a civil action against an alleged infringer for a violation of any of the exclusive rights conferred by a patent, copyright, or trademark. If a defendant is found guilty of patent infringement in a lawsuit brought by the patent holder, the remedies available to the plaintiff include an injunction to cease and prohibit the offending activity by the defendant, damages to compensate for the infringement, and even attorney fees. Federal law only provides civil remedies in the event of patent infringement; there are no criminal sanctions. The Copyright Act provides several civil remedies for infringement, including the possibility of obtaining injunctive relief, actual damages suffered by the copyright owner due to the infringement, statutory damages, and costs and attorney fees. The U.S. Department of Justice may also criminally prosecute particularly egregious violators of the copyright law in the case of willful infringement for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain. The usual remedy for trademark infringement is injunctive relief, although monetary relief is also available. In addition, the court may order that any infringing articles bearing the reproduction, copy, or colorable imitation of a registered trademark be destroyed. As noted above, IP owners may enforce their rights under the federal IP laws by bringing lawsuits against alleged infringers. The defendants who may be sued for infringement include private individuals, companies, and also the federal government. However, while both monetary and injunctive relief are available in the case of private entity defendants, the remedies differ when the defendant is the federal government in copyright and patent infringement cases. Federal government infringement of a copyright or patent may give rise to a cause of action that is governed by statute, 28 U.S.C. Â§ 1498. This law provides that if the federal government uses a patented invention without the authorization of the patent holder, or if the federal government infringes a copyright, the only remedy available to the IP owner is the right to bring suit in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims to recover "reasonable and entire compensation" from the federal government. However, note that the federal government remains fully liable for all forms of relief (both monetary and injunctive) that are provided under the Lanham Act in the case of trademark infringement. Yet when state governments and state institutions (such as state-owned universities) infringe copyrights, patents, or trademarks, the IP owner currently has very limited legal recourse because of the U.S. Supreme Court's jurisprudence concerning the Eleventh Amendment. This case law has produced what some consider an anomalous outcome: a state may own a copyright, patent, or trademark and sue to enforce its rights in federal court, but that state may not be held accountable for monetary damages for its own violations of others' IP rights unless the state waives its sovereign immunity and consents to be sued. Shortly after the Revolutionary War, two citizens of South Carolina sued the state of Georgia to recover a Revolutionary War debt owed by the State. The case eventually made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where in Chisholm v. Georgia the Court noted that Article III of the Constitution specifically granted the federal courts jurisdiction over suits "between a state and citizens of another state." The authorization came as a considerable surprise to the states, which had each relied on the immunity from suit that had commonly accompanied state sovereignty. In a direct rebuke of Chisholm , Congress and the states immediately acted to protect state sovereign immunity through the ratification of the Eleventh Amendment, the first amendment to the Constitution subsequent to the Bill of Rights. The Eleventh Amendment states, "The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State." Though the language of the amendment appears to bar only suits against a state by non-residents, the Supreme Court has interpreted the doctrine of sovereign immunity to also bar suits by citizens against their own state. The Eleventh Amendment therefore protects states from being sued in federal court without their consent in both federal question and diversity cases. The Court expanded the purview of the amendment in Alden v. Maine to include immunity from suit under federal law within a state's own court system. In Hans v. Louisiana , the Court considered whether the grant of federal jurisdiction found in Article III of the Constitution negated state sovereign immunity. In holding that it did not, the Court characterized the Eleventh Amendment as a specific attempt to overturn the Court's misinterpretation in Chisholm , rather than an affirmative amendment to the original structure of the Constitution. The Eleventh Amendment had not constituted a change in the Constitution, the Court determined, but a restoration of the original and intended constitutional design. This interpretation allowed the Court to expand sovereign immunity beyond the confines of the language of the Eleventh Amendment. It was not until 1996 that the Court attempted to define the extent to which Congress had the authority to abrogate sovereign immunity where a state refused to waive its protection. In Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida, the Supreme Court reasoned that because the Eleventh Amendment was ratified after Article I of the Constitution, Congress could not abrogate state sovereign immunity pursuant to any legislative power granted under the enumerated powers of Article I, Â§ 8.