[1] 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.

It enjoined Sears from selling the identical lamps and ordered an award of monetary damages to Stiffel Co.[6] The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed by holding that under Illinois law, Stiffel had to prove only that there was a "likelihood of confusion as to the source of the products" due to the identical appearance of the lamps.

[8] The lower courts had erred by using Illinois unfair competition law to effectively give Stiffel Co. a patent monopoly on its unpatented lamp.

1178 (1964) was published containing articles on Sears and Compco after "the Editors of the Columbia Law Review [] invited several eminent scholars to comment upon the opinions."