Infringement of Intellectual Property Rights and State Sovereign Immunity

Summary

This report discusses the Eleventh Amendment and the concept of state sovereign immunity. Although the amendment appears to be focused on preventing suits against a state by non-residents in federal courts, the U.S. Supreme Court has expanded the concept of state sovereign immunity to reach much further than the literal text of the amendment, to include immunity from suits by the states' own citizens and immunity from suits under federal law within a state's own court system.