238
Stevens, J., dissenting
were upheld in the early days." Ante, at 202.12 Evans v. Jordan, 8 F. Cas. 872, 874 (No. 4,564) (CC Va. 1813) (Marshall, J.); Evans v. Robinson, 8 F. Cas. 886, 888 (No. 4,571) (CC Md. 1813); and Blanchard v. Sprague, 3 F. Cas. 648, 650 (No. 1,518) (CC Mass. 1839) (Story, J.), all held that private bills passed by Congress extending previously expired patents were valid. Evans v. Jordan and Evans v. Robinson both considered Oliver Evans' private bill discussed above while Blanchard involved ch. 213, 6 Stat. 589, which extended Thomas Blanchard's patent after it had been in the public domain for five months. Irrespective of what circuit courts held "in the early days," ante, at 202, such holdings have been implicitly overruled by Graham and, therefore, provide no support for respondent in the present constitutional inquiry.
The majority's reliance on the other patent case it cites is similarly misplaced. Contrary to the suggestion in the Court's opinion, McClurg v. Kingsland, 1 How. 202 (1843), did not involve the "legislative expansion" of an existing patent. Ante, at 202. The question in that case was whether the former employer of the inventor, one James Harley, could be held liable as an infringer for continuing to use the process that Harley had invented in 1834 when he was in its employ. The Court first held that the employer's use of the process before the patent issued was not a public
12 It is true, as the majority points out, ante, at 202, n. 7, that Graham did not expressly overrule those earlier cases because Graham did not address the issue whether Congress could revive expired patents. That observation does not even arguably justify reliance on a set of old circuit court cases to support a proposition that is inconsistent with our present understanding of the limits imposed by the Copyright/Patent Clause. After all, a unanimous Court recently endorsed the precise analysis that the majority now seeks to characterize as "wishful thinking." Ante, at 202, n. 7. See Bonito Boats, 489 U. S., at 146 ("Congress may not create patent monopolies of unlimited duration, nor may it 'authorize the issuance of patents whose effects are to remove existent knowledge from the public domain, or to restrict free access to materials already available' " (quoting Graham, 383 U. S., at 6)).
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