Cite as: 537 U. S. 186 (2003)
Stevens, J., dissenting
In 1861, Congress amended the term of patents, from a 14-year term plus opportunity for 7-year extension to a flat 17 years with no extension permitted. Act of Mar. 2, 1861, ch. 88, § 16, 12 Stat. 249. This change was not retroactive, but rather only applied to "all patents hereafter granted." Ibid. To be sure, Congress, at many times in its history, has retroactively extended the terms of existing copyrights and patents. This history, however, reveals a much more heterogeneous practice than respondent contends. It is replete with actions that were unquestionably unconstitutional. Though relevant, the history is not dispositive of the constitutionality of the Sonny Bono Act.
The general presumption that historic practice illuminates the constitutionality of congressional action is not controlling in this case. That presumption is strongest when the earliest acts of Congress are considered, for the overlap of identity between those who created the Constitution and those who first constituted Congress provides "contemporaneous and weighty evidence" of the Constitution's "true meaning." Wisconsin v. Pelican Ins. Co., 127 U. S. 265, 297 (1888). But that strong presumption does not attach to congressional action in 1831, because no member of the 1831 Congress had been a delegate to the framing convention 44 years earlier.
Moreover, judicial opinions relied upon by the majority interpreting early legislative enactments have either been implicitly overruled or do not support the proposition claimed. Graham flatly contradicts the cases relied on by the majority and respondent for support that "renewed or extended terms
Manhattan argued that the Clause actually should be interpreted as confirming the State's authority to grant monopoly privileges that supplemented any federal grant. That argument is, of course, flatly inconsistent with our recent unanimous decision in Bonito Boats, Inc. v. Thunder Craft Boats, Inc., 489 U. S. 141 (1989). Although Attorney General Wirt had urged the Court to endorse our present interpretation of the Clause, its implicit limitations were unsettled when the 1831 Copyright Act was passed.
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