JUSTICE O'CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court.
We must decide today what limits the operation of the federal patent system places on the States' ability to offer substantial protection to utilitarian and design ideas which the patent laws leave otherwise unprotected. In Interpart [*144] Corp. v. Italia, 777 F. 2d 678 (1985), the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit concluded that a California law prohibiting the use of the "direct molding process" to duplicate unpatented articles posed no threat to the policies behind the federal patent laws. In this case, the Florida Supreme Court came to a contrary conclusion. It struck down a Florida statute which prohibits the use of the direct molding process to duplicate unpatented boat hulls, finding that the protection offered by the Florida law conflicted with the balance struck by Congress in the federal patent statute between the encouragement of invention and free competition in unpatented ideas. 515 So. 2d 220 (1987). We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict, [***8] 486 U.S. 1004 (1988), and we now affirm the judgment of the Florida Supreme Court.
In September 1976, petitioner Bonito Boats, Inc. (Bonito),
a Florida corporation, developed a hull design for a fiberglass
recreational boat which it marketed under the trade name Bonito
Boat Model 5VBR. App. 5. Designing the boat hull required substantial
effort on the part of Bonito. A set of engineering drawings was
prepared, from which a hardwood model was created. The hardwood
model was then sprayed with fiberglass to create a mold, which
then served to produce the finished fiberglass boats for sale.
The 5VBR was placed on the market sometime in September 1976.
There is no indication in the record that a patent application
was ever filed for protection of the utilitarian or design aspects
of the hull, or for the process by which the hull was manufactured.
The 5VBR was favorably received by the boating public, and "a
broad interstate market" developed for its sale. Ibid.
In May 1983, after the Bonito 5VBR had been available to the public
for over six years, the Florida Legislature enacted Fla. Stat.
@ 559.94 (1987). The statute makes "[i]t . . . unlawful [***9]
for any person to use the direct molding process to duplicate
[*145] for the purpose of sale any manufactured vessel hull or
component part of a vessel made by another without the written
permission of that other person." @ 559.94(2). The statute
also makes it unlawful for a person to "knowingly sell a
vessel hull or component part of a vessel duplicated in violation
of subsection (2)." @ 559.94(3). Damages, injunctive relief,
and attorney's fees are made available to "[a]ny person who
suffers injury or damage as the result of a violation" of
the statute. @ 559.94(4). The statute was made applicable to vessel
hulls or component parts duplicated through the use of direct
molding after July 1, 1983. @ 559.94(5).
On December 21, 1984, Bonito filed this action in the Circuit
Court of Orange County, Florida. The complaint alleged that respondent
here, Thunder Craft Boats, Inc. (Thunder Craft), a Tennessee corporation,
had violated the Florida statute by using the direct molding process
to duplicate the Bonito 5VBR fiberglass hull, and had knowingly
sold such duplicates in violation of the Florida statute. Bonito
sought "a temporary and permanent injunction prohibiting
[***10] [Thunder Craft] from continuing to unlawfully duplicate
and sell Bonito Boat hulls or components," as well as an
accounting of profits, treble damages, punitive damages, and attorney's
fees. App. 6, 7. Respondent filed a motion to dismiss the complaint,
arguing that under this Court's decisions in Sears, Roebuck &
Co. v. Stiffel Co., 376 U.S. 225 (1964), and Compco Corp. v. Day-Brite
Lighting, Inc., 376 U.S. 234 [**975] (1964), the Florida statute
conflicted with federal patent law and was therefore invalid under
the Supremacy Clause of the Federal Constitution. App. 8-9. The
trial court granted respondent's motion, id., at 10-11, and a
divided Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of petitioner's
complaint. 487 So. 2d 395 (1986).
On appeal, a sharply divided Florida Supreme Court agreed with
the lower courts' conclusion that the Florida law impermissibly
interfered with the scheme established by the federal patent laws.
See 515 So. 2d 220 (1987). The majority [*146] read our decisions
in Sears and Compco for the proposition that "when [***11]
an article is introduced into the public domain, only a patent
can eliminate the inherent risk of competition and then but for
a limited time." 515 So. 2d, at 222. Relying on the Federal
Circuit's decision in the Interpart case, the three dissenting
judges argued that the Florida antidirect molding provision "does
not prohibit the copying of an unpatented item. It prohibits one
method of copying; the item remains in the public domain."
515 So. 2d, at 223 (Shaw, J., dissenting).
Article I, @ 8, cl. 8, of the Constitution gives Congress the
power "[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts,
by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive
Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." The
Patent Clause itself reflects a balance between the need to encourage
innovation and the avoidance of monopolies which stifle competition
without any concomitant advance in the "Progress of Science
and useful Arts." As we have noted in the past, the Clause
contains both a grant of power and certain limitations upon the
exercise of that power. Congress may not create patent monopolies
of unlimited duration, [***12] 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." Graham v. John Deere Co. of Kansas City,
383 U.S. 1, 6 (1966).
From their inception, the federal patent laws have embodied a
careful balance between the need to promote innovation and the
recognition that imitation and refinement through imitation are
both necessary to invention itself and the very lifeblood of a
competitive economy. Soon after the adoption of the Constitution,
the First Congress enacted the Patent Act of 1790, which allowed
the grant of a limited monopoly of 14 years to any applicant that
"hath . . . invented or discovered [*147] any useful art,
manufacture, . . . or device, or any improvement therein not before
known or used." 1 Stat. 109, 110. In addition to novelty,
the 1790 Act required that the invention be "sufficiently
useful and important" to merit the 14-year right of exclusion.
Ibid. Section 2 of the Act required that the patentee deposit
with the Secretary of State, a specification and if possible a
model of the new invention, [***13] "which specification
shall be so particular, and said models so exact, as not only
to distinguish the invention or discovery from other things before
known and used, but also to enable a workman or other person skilled
in the art or manufacture . . . to make, construct, or use the
same, to the end that the public may have the full benefit thereof,
after the expiration of the patent term." Ibid.
The first Patent Act established an agency known by self-designation
as the "Commissioners for the promotion of Useful Arts,"
composed of the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Department
of War, and the Attorney General, any two of whom could grant
a patent. Thomas Jefferson was the first Secretary of State, and
the driving force behind early federal patent policy. For Jefferson,
a central tenet of the patent system in a free market economy
was that "a machine of which we were possessed, might be
applied by every man to any use of which it is susceptible."
13 Writings of Thomas Jefferson 335 (Memorial [**976] ed. 1904).
He viewed a grant of patent rights in an idea already disclosed
to the public as akin to an ex post facto law, "obstruct[ing]
others in the use of what they [***14] possessed before."
Id., at 326-327. Jefferson also played a large role in the drafting
of our Nation's second Patent Act, which became law in 1793. The
Patent Act of 1793 carried over the requirement that the subject
of a patent application be "not known or used before the
application." Ch. 11, 1 Stat. 318, 319. A defense to an infringement
action was created where "the thing, thus secured by patent,
was not originally discovered by the patentee, but had been in
use, or had been described in some public work [*148] anterior
to the supposed discovery of the patentee." Id., at 322.
Thus, from the outset, federal patent law has been about the difficult
business "of drawing a line between the things which are
worth to the public the embarrassment of an exclusive patent,
and those which are not." 13 Writings of Thomas Jefferson,
supra, at 335.
Today's patent statute is remarkably similar to the law as known
to Jefferson in 1793. Protection is offered to "[w]hoever
invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture,
or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof."
35 U. S. C. @ 101. Since 1842, [***15] Congress has also made
protection available for "any new, original and ornamental
design for an article of manufacture." 35 U. S. C. @ 171.
To qualify for protection, a design must present an aesthetically
pleasing appearance that is not dictated by function alone, and
must satisfy the other criteria of patentability. The novelty
requirement of patentability is presently expressed in 35 U. S.
C. @@ 102(a) and (b), which provide:
Sections 102(a) and (b) operate in tandem to exclude from consideration
for patent protection knowledge that is already available to the
public. They express a congressional determination [***16] that
the creation of a monopoly in such information would not only
serve no socially useful purpose, but would in fact injure the
public by removing existing knowledge from public use. From the
Patent Act of 1790 to the present day, [*149] the public sale
of an unpatented article has acted as a complete bar to federal
protection of the idea embodied in the article thus placed in
public commerce.
In the case of Pennock v. Dialogue, 2 Pet. 1 (1829), Justice Story
applied these principles under the patent law of 1800. The patentee
had developed a new technique for the manufacture of rubber hose
for the conveyance of air and fluids. The invention was reduced
to practice in 1811, but letters patent were not sought and granted
until 1818. In the interval, the patentee had licensed a third
party to market the hose, and over 13,000 feet of the new product
had been sold in the city of Philadelphia alone. The Court concluded
that the patent was invalid due to the prior public sale, indicating
that, "if [an inventor] suffers the thing he invented to
go into public use, or to be publicly sold for use" "[h]is
voluntary act or acquiescence in the public [***17] sale and use
is an abandonment of his right." Id., at 23-24. The Court
noted that under the common law of England, letters patent were
unavailable for the protection of articles in public commerce
at the time of the application, id., at 20, and that this same
doctrine was immediately embodied in the first patent laws passed
in this country. Id., at 21-22.
As the holding of Pennock makes clear, the federal patent scheme
creates a limited [**977] opportunity to obtain a property right
in an idea. Once an inventor has decided to lift the veil of secrecy
from his work, he must choose the protection of a federal patent
or the dedication of his idea to the public at large. As Judge
Learned Hand once put it: "[I]t is a condition upon the inventor's
right to a patent that he shall not exploit his discovery competitively
after it is ready for patenting; he must content himself with
either secrecy or legal monopoly." Metallizing Engineering
Co. v. Kenyon Bearing & Auto Parts Co., 153 F. 2d 516, 520
(CA2), cert. denied, 328 U.S. 840 (1946). [***18]
In addition to the requirements of novelty and utility, the federal
patent law has long required that an innovation not be [*150]
anticipated by the prior art in the field. Even if a particular
combination of elements is "novel" in the literal sense
of the term, it will not qualify for federal patent protection
if its contours are so traced by the existing technology in the
field that the "improvement is the work of the skillful mechanic,
not that of the inventor." Hotchkiss v. Greenwood, 11 How.
248, 267 (1851). In 1952, Congress codified this judicially developed
requirement in 35 U. S. C. @ 103, which refuses protection to
new developments where "the differences between the subject
matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the
subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time
the invention was made to a person of ordinary skill in the art
to which said subject matter pertains." The nonobviousness
requirement extends the field of unpatentable material beyond
that which is known to the public under @ 102, to include that
which could readily be deduced from publicly available material
by a [***19] person of ordinary skill in the pertinent field of
endeavor. See Graham, 383 U.S., at 15. Taken together, the novelty
and nonobviousness requirements express a congressional determination
that the purposes behind the Patent Clause are best served by
free competition and exploitation of either that which is already
available to the public or that which may be readily discerned
from publicly available material. See Aronson v. Quick Point Pencil
Co., 440 U.S. 257, 262 (1979) ("[T]he stringent requirements
for patent protection seek to ensure that ideas in the public
domain remain there for the use of the public").
The applicant whose invention satisfies the requirements of novelty,
nonobviousness, and utility, and who is willing to reveal to the
public the substance of his discovery and "the best mode
. . . of carrying out his invention," 35 U. S. C. @ 112,
is granted "the right to exclude others from making, using,
or selling the invention throughout the United States," for
a period of 17 years. 35 U. S. C. @ 154. The federal patent system
thus [***20] embodies a carefully crafted bargain for encouraging
[*151] the creation and disclosure of new, useful, and nonobvious
advances in technology and design in return for the exclusive
right to practice the invention for a period of years. "[The
inventor] may keep his invention secret and reap its fruits indefinitely.
In consideration of its disclosure and the consequent benefit
to the community, the patent is granted. An exclusive enjoyment
is guaranteed him for seventeen years, but upon expiration of
that period, the knowledge of the invention inures to the people,
who are thus enabled without restriction to practice it and profit
by its use." United States v. Dubilier Condenser Corp., 289
U.S. 178, 186-187 (1933).
The attractiveness of such a bargain, and its effectiveness in
inducing creative effort and disclosure of the results of that
effort, depend almost entirely on a backdrop of free competition
in the exploitation of unpatented designs and innovations. The
novelty and nonobviousness requirements of patentability embody
a congressional understanding, implicit in the Patent Clause itself,
that free exploitation of ideas will be the rule, [***21] to which
the protection of a federal patent is the exception. Moreover,
the [**978] ultimate goal of the patent system is to bring new
designs and technologies into the public domain through disclosure.
State law protection for techniques and designs whose disclosure
has already been induced by market rewards may conflict with the
very purpose of the patent laws by decreasing the range of ideas
available as the building blocks of further innovation. The offer
of federal protection from competitive exploitation of intellectual
property would be rendered meaningless in a world where substantially
similar state law protections were readily available. To a limited
extent, the federal patent laws must determine not only what is
protected, but also what is free for all to use. Cf. Arkansas
Electric Cooperative Corp. v. Arkansas Public Service Comm'n,
461 U.S. 375, 384 (1983) ("[A] federal decision to forgo
regulation in a given area may imply an authoritative federal
determination that the area is best left unregulated, [*152] and
in that event would have as much pre-emptive force as a decision
to regulate") (emphasis in original).
[***22] Thus our past decisions have made clear that state regulation
of intellectual property must yield to the extent that it clashes
with the balance struck by Congress in our patent laws. The tension
between the desire to freely exploit the full potential of our
inventive resources and the need to create an incentive to deploy
those resources is constant. Where it is clear how the patent
laws strike that balance in a particular circumstance, that is
not a judgment the States may second-guess. We have long held
that after the expiration of a federal patent, the subject matter
of the patent passes to the free use of the public as a matter
of federal law. See Coats v. Merrick Thread Co., 149 U.S. 562,
572 (1893) ("[P]laintiffs' right to the use of the embossed
periphery expired with their patent, and the public had the same
right to make use of it as if it had never been patented");
Kellogg Co. v. National Biscuit Co., 305 U.S. 111 (1938); Singer
Mfg. Co. v. June Mfg. Co., 163 U.S. 169 (1896). Where the public
has paid the congressionally mandated price for disclosure, the
States [***23] may not render the exchange fruitless by offering
patent-like protection to the subject matter of the expired patent.
"It is self-evident that on the expiration of a patent the
monopoly created by it ceases to exist, and the right to make
the thing formerly covered by the patent becomes public property."
Singer, supra, at 185.
In our decisions in Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Stiffel Co., 376
U.S. 225 (1964), and Compco Corp. v. Day-Brite Lighting, Inc.,
376 U.S. 234 (1964), we found that publicly known design and utilitarian
ideas which were unprotected by patent occupied much the same
position as the subject matter of an expired patent. The Sears
case involved a pole lamp originally designed by the plaintiff
Stiffel, who had secured both design and mechanical patents on
the lamp. Sears purchased unauthorized copies of the lamps, and
was able to sell them at a retail price practically equivalent
to the wholesale [*153] price of the original manufacturer. Sears,
supra, at 226. Stiffel brought an action against Sears in Federal
District Court, alleging [***24] infringement of the two federal
patents and unfair competition under Illinois law. The District
Court found that Stiffel's patents were invalid due to anticipation
in the prior art, but nonetheless enjoined Sears from further
sales of the duplicate lamps based on a finding of consumer confusion
under the Illinois law of unfair competition. The Court of Appeals
affirmed, coming to the conclusion that the Illinois law of unfair
competition prohibited product simulation even in the absence
of evidence that the defendant took some further action to induce
confusion as to source.
This Court reversed, finding that the unlimited protection against
copying which [**979] the Illinois law accorded an unpatentable
item whose design had been fully disclosed through public sales
conflicted with the federal policy embodied in the patent laws.
The Court stated:
A similar conclusion was reached in Compco, where the District
Court had extended the protection of Illinois' unfair competition
law to the functional aspects of an unpatented fluorescent lighting
system. The injunction against copying of an unpatented article,
freely available to the public, impermissibly "interfere[d]
with the federal policy, found in Art. I, @ 8, cl. 8, of the Constitution
and in the implementing federal statutes, of allowing free access
to copy whatever the federal patent and copyright laws leave in
the public domain." Compco, supra, at 237.
[*154] The pre-emptive sweep of our decisions in Sears and Compco
has been the subject of heated scholarly and judicial debate.
See, e. g., Symposium, Product Simulation: A Right or a Wrong?,
64 Colum. L. Rev. 1178 (1964); Lear, Inc. v. Adkins, 395 U.S.
653, 676 (1969) (Black, J., concurring in part and dissenting
in part). [***26] Read at their highest level of generality, the
two decisions could be taken to stand for the proposition that
the States are completely disabled from offering any form of protection
to articles or processes which fall within the broad scope of
patentable subject matter. See id., at 677. Since the potentially
patentable includes "anything under the sun that is made
by man," Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. 303, 309 (1980)
(citation omitted), the broadest reading of Sears would prohibit
the States from regulating the deceptive simulation of trade dress
or the tortious appropriation of private information.
That the extrapolation of such a broad pre-emptive principle from
Sears is inappropriate is clear from the balance struck in Sears
itself. The Sears Court made it plain that the States "may
protect businesses in the use of their trademarks, labels, or
distinctive dress in the packaging of goods so as to prevent others,
by imitating such markings, from misleading purchasers as to the
source of the goods." Sears, supra, at 232 (footnote omitted).
Trade dress [***27] is, of course, potentially the subject matter
of design patents. See W. T. Rogers Co. v. Keene, 778 F. 2d 334,
337 (CA7 1985). Yet our decision in Sears clearly indicates that
the States may place limited regulations on the circumstances
in which such designs are used in order to prevent consumer confusion
as to source. Thus, while Sears speaks in absolutist terms, its
conclusion that the States may place some conditions on the use
of trade dress indicates an implicit recognition that all state
regulation of potentially patentable but unpatented subject matter
is not ipso facto pre-empted by the federal patent laws.
[*155] What was implicit in our decision in Sears, we have made
explicit in our subsequent decisions concerning the scope of federal
pre-emption of state regulation of the subject matter of patent.
Thus, in Kewanee Oil Co. v. Bicron Corp., 416 U.S. 470 (1974),
we held that state protection of trade secrets did not operate
to frustrate the achievement of the congressional objectives served
by the patent laws. Despite the fact that state law protection
was available for ideas which [***28] clearly fell within the
subject matter of patent, the Court concluded that the nature
and degree of state protection did not conflict with the federal
policies [**980] of encouragement of patentable invention and
the prompt disclosure of such innovations.
Several factors were critical to this conclusion. First, because
the public awareness of a trade secret is by definition limited,
the Court noted that "the policy that matter once in the
public domain must remain in the public domain is not incompatible
with the existence of trade secret protection." Id., at 484.
Second, the Kewanee Court emphasized that "[t]rade secret
law provides far weaker protection in many respects than the patent
law." Id., at 489-490. This point was central to the Court's
conclusion that trade secret protection did not conflict with
either the encouragement or disclosure policies of the federal
patent law. The public at large remained free to discover and
exploit the trade secret through reverse engineering of products
in the public domain or by independent creation. Id., at 490.
Thus, the possibility [***29] that trade secret protection would
divert inventors from the creative effort necessary to satisfy
the rigorous demands of patent protection was remote indeed. Ibid.
Finally, certain aspects of trade secret law operated to protect
noneconomic interests outside the sphere of congressional concern
in the patent laws. As the Court noted, "[A] most fundamental
human right, that of privacy, is threatened when industrial espionage
is condoned or is made profitable." Id., at 487 (footnote
omitted). There was no indication that Congress [*156] had considered
this interest in the balance struck by the patent laws, or that
state protection for it would interfere with the policies behind
the patent system.
We have since reaffirmed the pragmatic approach which Kewanee
takes to the pre-emption of state laws dealing with the protection
of intellectual property. See Aronson, 440 U.S., at 262 ("State
law is not displaced merely because the contract relates to intellectual
property which may or may not be patentable; the states are free
to regulate the use of such intellectual property in any manner
not inconsistent [***30] with federal law"). At the same
time, we have consistently reiterated the teaching of Sears and
Compco that ideas once placed before the public without the protection
of a valid patent are subject to appropriation without significant
restraint. Aronson, supra, at 263.
At the heart of Sears and Compco is the conclusion that the efficient
operation of the federal patent system depends upon substantially
free trade in publicly known, unpatented design and utilitarian
conceptions. In Sears, the state law offered "the equivalent
of a patent monopoly," 376 U.S., at 233, in the functional
aspects of a product which had been placed in public commerce
absent the protection of a valid patent. While, as noted above,
our decisions since Sears have taken a decidedly less rigid view
of the scope of federal pre-emption under the patent laws, e.
g., Kewanee, supra, at 479-480, we believe that the Sears Court
correctly concluded that the States may not offer patent-like
protection to intellectual creations which would otherwise remain
unprotected as a matter of federal law. Both [***31] the novelty
and the nonobviousness requirements of federal patent law are
grounded in the notion that concepts within the public grasp,
or those so obvious that they readily could be, are the tools
of creation available to all. They provide the baseline of free
competition upon which the patent system's incentive to creative
effort depends. A state law that substantially interferes with
the enjoyment of an unpatented utilitarian or design conception
[*157] which has been freely disclosed by its author to the public
at large impermissibly contravenes the ultimate goal of public
disclosure and use which is the centerpiece of federal patent
policy. Moreover, through the creation of patent-like rights,
the States could essentially redirect inventive efforts away from
the careful criteria of patentability developed by Congress over
the last 200 years. [**981] We understand this to be the reasoning
at the core of our decisions in Sears and Compco, and we reaffirm
that reasoning today.
We believe that the Florida statute at issue in this case so substantially impedes the public use of the otherwise unprotected design and utilitarian ideas embodied in unpatented boat [***32] hulls as to run afoul of the teaching of our decisions in Sears and Compco. It is readily apparent that the Florida statute does not operate to prohibit "unfair competition" in the usual sense that the term is understood. The law of unfair competition has its roots in the common-law tort of deceit: its general concern is with protecting consumers from confusion as to source. While that concern may result in the creation of "quasi-property rights" in communicative symbols, the focus is on the protection of consumers, not the protection of producers as an incentive to product innovation. Judge Hand captured the distinction well in Crescent Tool Co. v. Kilborn & Bishop Co., 247 F. 299, 301 (CA2 1917), where he wrote:
With some notable exceptions, including [***33] the interpretation
of the Illinois law of unfair competition at issue in Sears and
[*158] Compco, see Sears, supra, at 227-228, n. 2, the common-law
tort of unfair competition has been limited to protection against
copying of nonfunctional aspects of consumer products which have
acquired secondary meaning such that they operate as a designation
of source. See generally P. Kaufmann, Passing Off and Misappropriation,
in 9 International Review of Industrial Property and Copyright
Law, Studies in Industrial Property and Copyright Law 100-109
(1986). The "protection" granted a particular design
under the law of unfair competition is thus limited to one context
where consumer confusion is likely to result; the design "idea"
itself may be freely exploited in all other contexts.
In contrast to the operation of unfair competition law, the Florida
statute is aimed directly at preventing the exploitation of the
design and utilitarian conceptions embodied in the product itself.
The sparse legislative history surrounding its enactment indicates
that it was intended to create an inducement for the improvement
of boat hull designs. See Tr. of Meeting [***34] of Transportation
Committee, Florida House of Representatives, May 3, 1983, reprinted
at App. 22 ("[T]here is no inducement for [a] quality boat
manufacturer to improve these designs and secondly, if he does,
it is immediately copied. This would prevent that and allow him
recourse in circuit court"). To accomplish this goal, the
Florida statute endows the original boat hull manufacturer with
rights against the world, similar in scope and operation to the
rights accorded a federal patentee. Like the patentee, the beneficiary
of the Florida statute may prevent a competitor from "making"
the product in what is evidently the most efficient manner available
and from "selling" the product when it is produced in
that fashion. Compare 35 U. S. C. @ 154. * [*159] The Florida
scheme offers this [**982] protection for an unlimited number
of years to all boat hulls and their component parts, without
regard to their ornamental or technological merit. Protection
is available for subject matter for which patent protection has
been denied or has expired, as well as for designs which have
been freely revealed to the consuming public by their [***35]
creators.
In this case, the Bonito 5VBR fiberglass hull has been freely
exposed to the public for a period in excess of six years. For
purposes of federal law, it stands in the same stead as an item
for which a patent has expired or been denied: it is unpatented
and unpatentable. See 35 U. S. C. @ 102(b). Whether because of
a determination of unpatentability or other commercial concerns,
petitioner chose to expose its hull design to the public in the
marketplace, eschewing the bargain held out by the federal patent
system of disclosure in exchange for exclusive use. Yet, the Florida
statute allows petitioner to reassert a substantial property right
in the idea, thereby constricting the spectrum of useful public
knowledge. Moreover, it does so without the careful protections
of high standards of innovation and limited monopoly contained
in the federal scheme. We think it clear that such protection
conflicts with the federal policy "that all ideas in general
circulation be dedicated to the common good [*160] unless they
are protected by a valid patent." Lear, Inc. v. Adkins, 395
U.S., at 668.
That the Florida statute [***37] does not remove all means of
reproduction and sale does not eliminate the conflict with the
federal scheme. See Kellogg, 305 U.S., at 122. In essence, the
Florida law prohibits the entire public from engaging in a form
of reverse engineering of a product in the public domain. This
is clearly one of the rights vested in the federal patent holder,
but has never been a part of state protection under the law of
unfair competition or trade secrets. See Kewanee, 416 U.S., at
476 ("A trade secret law, however, does not offer protection
against discovery by . . . so-called reverse engineering, that
is by starting with the known product and working backward to
divine the process which aided in its development or manufacture");
see also Chicago Lock Co. v. Fanberg, 676 F. 2d 400, 405 (CA9
1982) ("A lock purchaser's own reverse-engineering of his
own lock, and subsequent publication of the serial number-key
code correlation, is an example of the independent invention and
reverse engineering expressly allowed by trade secret doctrine").
The duplication of boat hulls and their component parts [***38]
may be an essential part of innovation in the field of hydrodynamic
design. Variations as to size and combination of various elements
may lead to significant advances in the field. Reverse engineering
of chemical and mechanical articles in the public domain often
leads to significant advances in technology. If Florida may prohibit
this particular method of study and recomposition of an unpatented
article, we fail to see the principle that would prohibit a State
from banning the use of chromatography in the reconstitution of
unpatented chemical compounds, or the use of robotics in the duplication
of machinery in the public domain.
Moreover, as we noted in Kewanee, the competitive reality of reverse
engineering may act as a spur to the inventor, creating an incentive
to develop inventions that meet the rigorous requirements of patentability.
416 U.S., at 489-490. [*161] The Florida statute substantially
reduces this competitive incentive, thus eroding the general rule
of free competition upon which the attractiveness of [**983] the
federal patent bargain depends. The protections of state trade
secret law are most effective at the developmental [***39] stage,
before a product has been marketed and the threat of reverse engineering
becomes real. During this period, patentability will often be
an uncertain prospect, and to a certain extent, the protection
offered by trade secret law may "dovetail" with the
incentives created by the federal patent monopoly. See Goldstein,
Kewanee Oil Co. v. Bicron Corp.: Notes on a Closing Circle, 1974
S. Ct. Rev. 81, 92. In contrast, under the Florida scheme, the
would-be inventor is aware from the outset of his efforts that
rights against the public are available regardless of his ability
to satisfy the rigorous standards of patentability. Indeed, it
appears that even the most mundane and obvious changes in the
design of a boat hull will trigger the protections of the statute.
See Fla. Stat. @ 559.94(2) (1987) (protecting "any manufactured
vessel hull or component part"). Given the substantial protection
offered by the Florida scheme, we cannot dismiss as hypothetical
the possibility that it will become a significant competitor to
the federal patent laws, offering investors similar protection
without the quid pro quo of substantial creative effort required
by [***40] the federal statute. The prospect of all 50 States
establishing similar protections for preferred industries without
the rigorous requirements of patentability prescribed by Congress
could pose a substantial threat to the patent system's ability
to accomplish its mission of promoting progress in the useful
arts.
Finally, allowing the States to create patent-like rights in various
products in public circulation would lead to administrative problems
of no small dimension. The federal patent scheme provides a basis
for the public to ascertain the status of the intellectual property
embodied in any article in general circulation. Through the application
process, detailed information [*162] concerning the claims of
the patent holder is compiled in a central location. See 35 U.
S. C. @@ 111-114. The availability of damages in an infringement
action is made contingent upon affixing a notice of patent to
the protected article. 35 U. S. C. @ 287. The notice requirement
is designed "for the information of the public," Wine
Railway Appliance Co. v. Enterprise Railway Equipment Co., 297
U.S. 387, 397 (1936), [***41] and provides a ready means of discerning
the status of the intellectual property embodied in an article
of manufacture or design. The public may rely upon the lack of
notice in exploiting shapes and designs accessible to all. See
Devices for Medicine, Inc. v. Boehl, 822 F. 2d 1062, 1066 (CA
Fed. 1987) ("Having sold the product unmarked, [the patentee]
could hardly maintain entitlement to damages for its use by a
purchaser uninformed that such use would violate [the] patent").
The Florida scheme blurs this clear federal demarcation between
public and private property. One of the fundamental purposes behind
the Patent and Copyright Clauses of the Constitution was to promote
national uniformity in the realm of intellectual property. See
The Federalist No. 43, p. 309 (B. Wright ed. 1961). Since the
Patent Act of 1800, Congress has lodged exclusive jurisdiction
of actions "arising under" the patent laws in the federal
courts, thus allowing for the development of a uniform body of
law in resolving the constant tension between private right and
public access. See 28 U. S. C. @ 1338; see also Chisum, [***42]
The Allocation of Jurisdiction Between State and Federal Courts
in Patent Litigation, 46 Wash. L. Rev. 633, 636 (1971). Recently,
Congress conferred exclusive jurisdiction of all patent appeals
on the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in order to "provide
nationwide uniformity in patent law." H. R. Rep. No. 97-312,
p. 20 (1981). This purpose is frustrated by the Florida scheme,
which renders the status of the design and utilitarian "ideas"
embodied in the boat hulls it protects uncertain. Given the inherently
ephemeral nature [*163] of property in ideas, and the great power
such property has to cause [**984] harm to the competitive policies
which underlay the federal patent laws, the demarcation of broad
zones of public and private right is "the type of regulation
that demands a uniform national rule." Ray v. Atlantic Richfield
Co., 435 U.S. 151, 179 (1978). Absent such a federal rule, each
State could afford patent-like protection to particularly favored
home industries, effectively insulating them from competition
from outside the State.
Our decisions since Sears and Compco have made it clear that
the Patent and Copyright Clauses do not, by their own force or
by negative implication, deprive the States of the power to adopt
rules for the promotion of intellectual creation within their
own jurisdictions. See Aronson, 440 U.S., at 262; Goldstein v.
California, 412 U.S. 546, 552-561 (1973); Kewanee, 416 U.S., at
478-479. Thus, where "Congress determines that neither federal
protection nor freedom from restraint is required by the national
interest," Goldstein, supra, at 559, the States remain free
to promote originality and creativity in their own domains.
Nor does the fact that a particular item lies within the subject
matter of the federal patent laws necessarily preclude the States
from offering limited protection which does not impermissibly
interfere [***48] with the federal patent scheme. As Sears itself
makes clear, States may place limited regulations on the use of
unpatented designs in order to prevent consumer confusion as to
source. In Kewanee, we found that [*166] state protection of trade
secrets, as applied to both patentable and unpatentable subject
matter, did not conflict with the federal patent laws. In both
situations, state protection was not aimed exclusively at the
promotion of invention itself, and the state restrictions on the
use of unpatented ideas were limited to those necessary to promote
goals outside the contemplation of the federal patent scheme.
Both the law of unfair competition and state trade secret law
have coexisted harmoniously with federal patent protection for
almost 200 years, and Congress has given no indication that their
operation is inconsistent with the operation of the federal patent
laws. See Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul, 373
U.S. 132, 144 (1963); United States v. Bass, 404 U.S. 336, 349
(1971).
Indeed, there are affirmative indications from Congress that both
the law of unfair competition and [***49] trade secret protection
are consistent with the balance struck by the patent laws. Section
43(a) of the Lanham Act, 60 Stat. 441, 15 U. S. C. @ 1125(a),
creates a federal remedy for making "a false designation
of origin, or any false description or representation, including
words or other symbols tending falsely to describe or represent
the same . . . ." Congress has thus given federal recognition
to many of the concerns that underlie the state tort of unfair
competition, and the application of Sears and Compco to nonfunctional
aspects of a product which have been shown to identify source
must take account of competing federal policies in this regard.
Similarly, as Justice Marshall noted in his concurring opinion
in Kewanee: "State trade secret laws and the federal patent
laws have co-existed for many, many, years. During this time,
Congress has repeatedly demonstrated its full awareness [**986]
of the existence of the trade secret system, without any indication
of disapproval. Indeed, Congress has in a number of instances
given explicit federal protection to trade secret information
provided to federal agencies." Kewanee, supra, at 494 [***50]
(concurring in result) (citation omitted). The case for [*167]
federal pre-emption is particularly weak where Congress has indicated
its awareness of the operation of state law in a field of federal
interest, and has nonetheless decided to "stand by both concepts
and to tolerate whatever tension there [is] between them."
Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee Corp., 464 U.S. 238, 256 (1984). The same
cannot be said of the Florida statute at issue here, which offers
protection beyond that available under the law of unfair competition
or trade secret, without any showing of consumer confusion, or
breach of trust or secrecy.
The Florida statute is aimed directly at the promotion of intellectual
creation by substantially restricting the public's ability to
exploit ideas that the patent system mandates shall be free for
all to use. Like the interpretation of Illinois unfair competition
law in Sears and Compco, the Florida statute represents a break
with the tradition of peaceful coexistence between state market
regulation and federal patent policy. The Florida law substantially
restricts the public's ability to exploit an unpatented design
in [***51] general circulation, raising the specter of state-created
monopolies in a host of useful shapes and processes for which
patent protection has been denied or is otherwise unobtainable.
It thus enters a field of regulation which the patent laws have
reserved to Congress. The patent statute's careful balance between
public right and private monopoly to promote certain creative
activity is a "scheme of federal regulation . . . so pervasive
as to make reasonable the inference that Congress left no room
for the States to supplement it." Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator
Corp., 331 U.S. 218, 230 (1947).
Congress has considered extending various forms of limited protection
to industrial design either through the copyright laws or by relaxing
the restrictions on the availability of design patents. See generally
Brown, Design Protection: An Overview, 34 UCLA L. Rev. 1341 (1987).
Congress explicitly refused to take this step in the copyright
laws, see 17 U. S. C. @ 101; H. R. Rep. No. 94-1476, p. 55 (1976),
and despite [*168] sustained criticism for a number of years,
it has declined to alter the [***52] patent protections presently
available for industrial design. See Report of the President's
Commission on the Patent System, S. Doc. No. 5, 90th Cong., 1st
Sess., 20-21 (1967); Lindgren, The Sanctity of the Design Patent:
Illusion or Reality?, 10 Okla. City L. Rev. 195 (1985). It is
for Congress to determine if the present system of design and
utility patents is ineffectual in promoting the useful arts in
the context of industrial design. By offering patent-like protection
for ideas deemed unprotected under the present federal scheme,
the Florida statute conflicts with the "strong federal policy
favoring free competition in ideas which do not merit patent protection."
Lear, Inc., 395 U.S., at 656. We therefore agree with the majority
of the Florida Supreme Court that the Florida statute is preempted
by the Supremacy Clause, and the judgment of that court is hereby
affirmed.
It is so ordered.