Cite as: 531 U. S. 12 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
Addressing this concern, the Government argues that Cleveland frustrated the State's right to control the issuance, renewal, and revocation of video poker licenses under La. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 27:306, 27:308 (West Supp. 2000). The Fifth Circuit has characterized the protected interest as "Louisiana's right to choose the persons to whom it issues video poker licenses." Salvatore, 110 F. 3d, at 1140. But far from composing an interest that "has long been recognized as property," Carpenter, 484 U. S., at 26, these intangible rights of allocation, exclusion, and control amount to no more and no less than Louisiana's sovereign power to regulate. Notably, the Government overlooks the fact that these rights include the distinctively sovereign authority to impose criminal penalties for violations of the licensing scheme, La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 27:309 (West Supp. 2000), including making false statements in a license application, § 27:309(A). Even when tied to an expected stream of revenue, the State's right of control does not create a property interest any more than a law licensing liquor sales in a State that levies a sales tax on liquor. Such regulations are paradigmatic exercises of the States' traditional police powers.
The Government compares the State's interest in video poker licenses to a patent holder's interest in a patent that she has not yet licensed. Although it is true that both involve the right to exclude, we think the congruence ends there. Louisiana does not conduct gaming operations itself, it does not hold video poker licenses to reserve that prerogative, and it does not "sell" video poker licenses in the ordinary commercial sense. Furthermore, while a patent holder may sell her patent, see 35 U. S. C. § 261 ("patents shall have the attributes of personal property"), the State may not sell its licensing authority. Instead of a patent holder's interest in an unlicensed patent, the better analogy is to the Federal Government's interest in an unissued patent. That interest, like the State's interest in licensing video poker operations,
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