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Syllabus
must identify conduct transgressing the Fourteenth Amendment's substantive provisions, and must tailor its legislative scheme to remedying or preventing such conduct. Pp. 634-639.
(b) Here, the underlying conduct is unremedied patent infringement by States. However, in enacting the Act, Congress identified no pattern of such infringement, let alone a pattern of constitutional violations. The House Report provided only two examples of patent infringement suits against States, and the Federal Circuit identified only eight such suits in 110 years. Testimony before the House Subcommittee acknowledged that States are willing and able to respect patent rights, and the Senate Report contains no evidence that unremedied patent infringement by States had become a problem of national import. Pp. 639-641.
(c) Although patents may be considered property within the meaning of the Due Process Clause, the legislative record still provides little support for the proposition that Congress sought to remedy a Fourteenth Amendment violation in enacting the Act. Under the plain terms of the Due Process Clause and the clear import of this Court's precedent, a State's infringement of a patent violates the Constitution only where the State provides no remedy, or only inadequate remedies, to injured patent owners for its infringement of their patent. Congress, however, barely considered the availability of state remedies for patent infringement. The primary point made by the limited testimony on state remedies was not whether the remedies were constitutionally inadequate, but rather that they were less convenient than federal remedies and might undermine the uniformity of patent law. Congress itself said nothing about the existence or adequacy of state remedies in the statute or the Senate Report. The need for uniformity in patent law construction, though undoubtedly important, is a factor belonging to the Article I patent-power calculus. Moreover, a state actor's negligent act causing unintended injury to a person's property does not "deprive" that person of property within the meaning of the Due Process Clause, and the record suggests that state infringement of patents was at worst innocent. The legislative record thus suggests that the Act does not respond to a history of widespread and persisting deprivation of constitutional rights of the sort Congress has faced in enacting proper prophylactic § 5 legislation. Because of the lack of legislative support for Congress' conclusion, the Act's provisions are so out of proportion to the supposed remedy or preventive object that they cannot be understood as responsive to, or designed to prevent, unconstitutional behavior. Congress did not limit the Act's coverage to cases involving arguable constitutional violations or confine its reach by limiting the remedy to certain types of infringement. Instead Congress made all States immediately amenable to federal-court suits for all kinds of possible patent
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