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Opinion of the Court
ment. See S. Rep., at 7-8; H. R. Rep., at 39-40.4 In Seminole Tribe, of course, this Court overruled the plurality opinion in Pennsylvania v. Union Gas Co., 491 U. S. 1 (1989), our only prior case finding congressional authority to abrogate state sovereign immunity pursuant to an Article I power (the Commerce Clause). 517 U. S., at 72-73. Seminole Tribe makes clear that Congress may not abrogate state sovereign immunity pursuant to its Article I powers; hence the Patent Remedy Act cannot be sustained under either the Commerce Clause or the Patent Clause. Ibid. The Federal Circuit recognized this, and College Savings and the United States do not contend otherwise.
Instead, College Savings and the United States argue that the Federal Circuit properly concluded that Congress enacted the Patent Remedy Act to secure the Fourteenth Amendment's protections against deprivations of property without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment provides in relevant part:
"Section 1. . . . No State shall . . . deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.
. . . . .
"Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."
While reaffirming the view that state sovereign immunity does not yield to Congress' Article I powers, this Court in
4 The Patent Clause provides that "Congress shall have Power . . . [t]o 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." Art. I, § 8, cl. 8. The Commerce Clause provides that "Congress shall have Power . . . [t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the Several States, and with the Indian Tribes." Art. I, § 8, cl. 3. The relevant portions of the Fourteenth Amendment are discussed below.
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