Cite as: 527 U. S. 627 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
our patent system"). The need for uniformity in the construction of patent law is undoubtedly important, but that is a factor which belongs to the Article I patent-power calculus, rather than to any determination of whether a state plea of sovereign immunity deprives a patentee of property without due process of law.
We have also said that a state actor's negligent act that causes unintended injury to a person's property does not "deprive" that person of property within the meaning of the Due Process Clause. See Daniels v. Williams, 474 U. S. 327, 328 (1986). Actions predicated on direct patent infringement, however, do not require any showing of intent to infringe; instead, knowledge and intent are considered only with respect to damages. See 35 U. S. C. § 271(a) (1994 ed., Supp. III); 5 D. Chisum, Patents § 16.02[2], p. 16-31 (rev. ed. 1998) (" 'It is, of course, elementary, that an infringement may be entirely inadvertent and unintentional and without knowledge of the patent' "). Congress did not focus on instances of intentional or reckless infringement on the part of the States. Indeed, the evidence before Congress suggested that most state infringement was innocent or at worst negligent. See S. Rep., at 10 (" 'It is not always clear that with all the products that [government] buy[s], that anyone is really aware of the patent status of any particular invention or device or product' "); H. R. Rep., at 39 ("[I]t should be very rare for a court to find . . . willful infringement on the part of a State or State agency"). Such negligent conduct, however, does not violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The legislative record thus suggests that the Patent Remedy 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. City of Boerne, 521 U. S., at 526. Instead, Congress appears to have enacted this legislation in response to a handful of instances of state patent infringement that do not
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