Cite as: 527 U. S. 627 (1999)
Stevens, J., dissenting
The Court acknowledges, as it must, that patents are property. Ante, at 642; see also Consolidated Fruit-Jar Co. v. Wright, 94 U. S. 92, 96 (1877). Every valid patent "gives the patentee or his assignee the 'exclusive right to make, use, and vend the invention or discovery' for a limited period." Transparent-Wrap Machine Corp. v. Stokes & Smith Co., 329 U. S. 637, 643 (1947). The Court suggests, however, that a State's infringement of a patent does not necessarily constitute a "deprivation" within the meaning of the Due Process Clause, because the infringement may be done negligently. Ante, at 645.
As part of its attempt to stem the tide of prisoner litigation, and to avoid making "the Fourteenth Amendment a font of tort law to be superimposed upon whatever systems may already be administered by the States," Daniels v. Williams, 474 U. S. 327, 332-334 (1986), this Court has drawn a constitutional distinction between negligent and intentional misconduct. Injuries caused by the mere negligence of state prison officials—in leaving a pillow on the stairs of the jail, for example—do not "deprive" anyone of liberty or property within the meaning of the Due Process Clause of that Amendment. Ibid. On the other hand, willful misconduct, and perhaps "recklessness or gross negligence," may give rise to such a deprivation. Id., at 334.
While I disagree with the Court's assumption that this standard necessarily applies to deprivations of patent rights, the Daniels line of cases has only marginal relevance to this case: Respondent College Savings Bank has alleged that petitioner's infringement was willful.4 The question presented by this case, then, is whether the Patent Remedy Act,
4 Paragraph 7 of College Savings' complaint alleges that " '[d]efendant Florida Prepaid with actual knowledge of the '055 patent, with knowledge of its infringement, and without lawful justification, has willfully infringed the '055 patent.' " App. to Pet. for Cert. 30a.
653
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