Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Stiffel Co.
1964 United States Supreme Court case
Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Stiffel Co., 376 U.S. 225 (1964), was a United States Supreme Court case that limited state law on unfair competition when it prevents the copying of an item that is not covered by a patent.
Justice Hugo Black wrote for a unanimous Court that the US Constitution reserved power over intellectual property such as patents to the federal government exclusively. Since the trial court had found Stiffel's patent invalid as insufficiently inventive, its product design was thus in the public domain and no state law could be used to prevent Sears from copying it.
The Supreme Court made a similar ruling in a companion case decided the same day, Compco Corp. v. Day-Brite Lighting, Inc..
The two cases were the first decisions of the Supreme Court that the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution prevents states from passing their own patent or patent-like laws. The issue had been raised but not decided in Gibbons v.
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