American Prospect Online - ViewWeb

American Prospect Online - ViewWeb First, states already take property for building roads and government sites under eminent domain powers, and could extend those powers to intellectual property, such as drug patents. Second, in a 1999 U.S. Supreme Court opinion (Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board v. College Savings Bank), the Court said that a state’s infringement of a patent, for a public purpose, is not by itself unconstitutional, so long as the state compensates the patent owner for the loss of the patent