power to declare and create binding law in commercial matters, such as bills and notes and torts such as negligence and business interference. This was under the doctrine of Swift v. Tyson, 41 U.S. 1 (1842), which had held that the federal courts, when deciding matters not specifically addressed by the state legislature, had the authority to develop a federal common law. In 1938, in Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (1938), the Supreme Court overruled Swift v. Tyson. As Justice Brandeis wrote: Congress has no power to declare substantive rules of common law applicable in a state whether they be local in their nature or "general," be they commercial law or a part of the law of torts. And no clause in the Constitution purports to confer such a power upon the federal courts. But because the INS case was decided in 1918, the Supreme Court could declare or create applicable tort law to govern the controversy between INS and AP. Previous state of unfair competition law Before the INS case, unfair competition was generally considered to be limited to cases of "palming off"—where the defendant deceived customers by causing them erroneously to believe that the defendant's product emanated from the plaintiff, and as a result diverted trade from the plaintiff to the defendant. Majority opinion The Court held in favor of the AP, with Justice Pitney writing for the majority. Justices Holmes and Brandeis wrote dissents. The majority opinion by Justice Pitney recognized that the information found in the AP news was not copyrightable as "the information respecting current events contained in the literary production is not the creation of a writer but is a report of matters that ordinarily are publici juris; it is the history of the day." Instead, Pitney approached the issue from the perspective of unfair competition. He found that there was a quasi-property right in the news as it is "stock in trade to be gathered at the cost of enterprise, organization, skill, labor and money, and to be distributed and sold to those who will pay money for it." Given the "economic value" of the news, a company can "therefore" have a limited property interest in it against a competitor (but not the general public) who would attempt to take advantage of the information. The Court characterized INS's behavior as misappropriation. Due to the tenuous value of "hot" news, Pitney