Florida Pre-paid v. College Savings Bank

Although not a copyright case, the paired rulings today (6/23) by the US Supreme Court in College Savings Bank, concerning state sovereign immunity under the 11th Amendment to suits alleging patent or trademark infringement, should be of interest to some on this listserv. These pending cases were discussed a few months ago on the listserv.

The SCt affirmed the Third Circuit and reversed the Federal Circuit, holding that neither the Lanham Act (trademark) nor the patent statutes abrogate state sovereign immunity. This follows the recent Seminole case, as well as today's Alden v. Maine. These holdings will probably be applied by the lower courts to claims under the Copyright Act.

The cases are online at the Cornell Supreme Court website,

   http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/

The relevance of this is that if a copyright owner claims that a state government entity, such as a state university or a state tourism bureau, has infringed her copyright, she may be out of luck...

Alan Kabat (Washington D.C.)
<alankabat[_at_]aol.com> Received on Wed Jun 23 1999 - 17:12:55 GMT