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Articles 1 - 18 of 18
Full-Text Articles in Law
Balancing Effects Across Markets, Daniel A. Crane
Balancing Effects Across Markets, Daniel A. Crane
Articles
In Philadelphia National Bank (PNB), the Supreme Court held that it is improper to weigh a merger's procompetitive effects in one market against the merger's anticompetitive effects in another. The merger in question, which ostensibly reduced retail competition in the Philadelphia area, could not be justified on the grounds that it increased competition against New York banks and hence perhaps enhanced competition in business banking in the mid-Atlantic region. I will refer to the Supreme Court's prohibition on balancing effects across markets as a "market-specificity" rule. Under this rule, efficiencies that may counterbalance anticompetitive aspects must be specific to …
Market Power Without Market Definition, Daniel A. Crane
Market Power Without Market Definition, Daniel A. Crane
Articles
Antitrust law has traditionally required proof of market power in most cases and has analyzed market power through a market definition/market share lens. In recent years, this indirect or structural approach to proving market power has come under attack as misguided in practice and intellectually incoherent. If market definition collapses in the courts and antitrust agencies, as it seems poised to do, this will rupture antitrust analysis and create urgent pressures for an alternative approach to proving market power through direct evidence. None of the leading theoretic approaches—such as the Lerner Index or a search for supracompetitive profits—provides a robust …
District Courts Versus The Usitc: Considering Exclusionary Relief For F/Rand-Encumbered Standard-Essential Patents, Helen H. Ji
District Courts Versus The Usitc: Considering Exclusionary Relief For F/Rand-Encumbered Standard-Essential Patents, Helen H. Ji
Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review
Technological standards allow manufacturers and consumers to rely upon these agreed-upon basic systems to facilitate sales and further invention. However, where these standards involved patented technology, the process of standard-setting raises many concerns at the intersection of antitrust and patent law. As patent holders advocate for their patents to become part of technological standards, how should courts police this activity to prevent patent holdup and other anti-competitive practices? This Note explores the differing approaches to remedies employed by the United States International Trade Commission and the United States District Courts where standard-essential patents are infringed. This Note further proposes that …
Unfit For Prime Time: Why Cable Television Regulations Cannot Perform Trinko's 'Antitrust Function', Keith Klovers
Unfit For Prime Time: Why Cable Television Regulations Cannot Perform Trinko's 'Antitrust Function', Keith Klovers
Michigan Law Review
Until recently, regulation and antitrust law operated in tandem to safeguard competition in regulated industries. In three recent decisions-Trinko, Credit Suisse, and Linkline-the Supreme Court limited the operation of the antitrust laws when regulation "performs the antitrust function." This Note argues that cable programming regulations-which are in some respects factually similar to the telecommunications regulations at issue in Trinko and Linkline-do not perform the antitrust function because they cannot deter anticompetitive conduct. As a result, Trinko and its siblings should not foreclose antitrust claims for damages that arise out of certain cable programming disputes.
Shutting The Black Door: Using American Needle To Cure The Problem Of Improper Product Definition, Daniel A. Schwartz
Shutting The Black Door: Using American Needle To Cure The Problem Of Improper Product Definition, Daniel A. Schwartz
Michigan Law Review
Section 1 of the Sherman Act is designed to protect competition by making illegal any agreement that has the effect of limiting consumer choice. To make this determination, courts first define the product at issue and then consider the challenged restraint's impact on the market in which that product competes. When considering § 1 allegations against sports leagues, courts have tended to define products according to the structure of the leagues. The result of this tendency is that harm to competition between the leagues' teams is not properly accounted for in the courts' analyses. This, in turn, grants leagues a …
Toward A Unified Theory Of Exclusionary Vertical Restraints, Daniel A. Crane, Graciela Miralles
Toward A Unified Theory Of Exclusionary Vertical Restraints, Daniel A. Crane, Graciela Miralles
Articles
The law of exclusionary vertical restraints-contractual or other business relationships between vertically related firms-is deeply confused and inconsistent in both the United States and the European Union. A variety of vertical practices, including predatory pricing, tying, exclusive dealing, price discrimination, and bundling, are treated very differently based on formalistic distinctions that bear no relationship to the practices' exclusionary potential. We propose a comprehensive, unified test for all exclusionary vertical restraints that centers on two factors: foreclosure and substantiality. We then assign economic content to these factors. A restraint forecloses if it denies equally efficient rivals a reasonable opportunity to make …
Pioneers Versus Improvers: Enabling Optimal Patent Claim Scope, Timothy Chen Saulsbury
Pioneers Versus Improvers: Enabling Optimal Patent Claim Scope, Timothy Chen Saulsbury
Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review
Arising most commonly as a defense to an infringement claim, enablement requires a patent to describe the claimed invention in sufficient detail to permit a person having ordinary skill in the relevant field to replicate and use the invention without needing to engage in "undue experimentation." If a patent claim is not "enabled"--i.e., if a person having ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA) who studied the patent cannot make or use the invention without undue experimentation--the claim is invalid and can no longer be asserted. This penalty deters patent applicants from claiming more than they invented and allows others to …
Does Monopoly Broth Make Bad Soup?, Daniel A. Crane
Does Monopoly Broth Make Bad Soup?, Daniel A. Crane
Articles
There is an oft-repeated maxim in U.S. antitrust law that a monopolist's conduct must be examined in its totality in order to determine its legality. Judges admonish that plaintiffs "should be given the full benefit of their proof without tightly compartmentalizating the various factual components and wiping the slate clean after scrutiny of each." As the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit stated in much-quoted language, "It is the mix of various ingredients ... in a monopoly broth that produces the unsavory flavor."' In this article, I examine the use and misuse of monopoly broth theories. Reflecting a …
Reflections On Section 5 Of The Ftc Act And The Ftc's Case Against Intel, Daniel A. Crane
Reflections On Section 5 Of The Ftc Act And The Ftc's Case Against Intel, Daniel A. Crane
Articles
The Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC’s”) unprecedented enforcement action against Intel raises profound issues concerning the scope of the FTC’s powers to give a construction to Section 5 of the FTC Act that goes beyond the substantive reach of the Sherman Act. While I have urged the FTC to assert such independence from the Sherman Act, this is the wrong case to make a break. Indeed, if anything, Intel poses a risk of seriously setting back the development of an independent Section 5 power by provoking a hostile appellate court to rebuke the FTC’s effort and cabin the FTC’s powers in …
Pharma's Nonobvious Problem, Rebecca S. Eisenberg
Pharma's Nonobvious Problem, Rebecca S. Eisenberg
Articles
This Article considers the effect of the recent decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in KSR International Co. v. Teleflex, Inc. on the nonobviousness standard for patentability as applied to pharmaceutical patents. By calling for an expansive and flexible analysis and disapproving of the use of rigid formulas in evaluating an invention for obviousness, KSR may appear to make it easier for generic competitors to challenge the validity of drug patents. But an examination of the Federal Circuit's nonobviousness jurisprudence in the context of such challenges reveals that the Federal Circuit has been employing all along the sort of flexible …
Trolling For Trolls: The Pitfalls Of The Emerging Market Competition Requirement For Permanent Injunctions In Patent Cases Post-Ebay, Benjamin H. Diessel
Trolling For Trolls: The Pitfalls Of The Emerging Market Competition Requirement For Permanent Injunctions In Patent Cases Post-Ebay, Benjamin H. Diessel
Michigan Law Review
In eBay v. MercExchange, a unanimous Supreme Court announced that a new four-factor test should be employed by district courts in determining whether to award an injunction or damages to an aggrieved party whose intellectual property has been infringed. In the context of permanent injunctions in patent cases, district courts have distorted the four-factor test resulting in a "market competition requirement." Under the new market competition requirement, success at obtaining an injunction is contingent upon a party demonstrating that it is a market competitor After consistent application in the first twenty-five district court cases post-eBay, the market competition requirement …
Reading Too Much Into Reeder-Simco?, Jeremy M. Suhr
Reading Too Much Into Reeder-Simco?, Jeremy M. Suhr
Michigan Law Review
This Note argues that a careful analysis of the Supreme Court's opinion in Volvo Trucks North America, Inc. v. Reeder-Simco GMC, Inc. demonstrates that, despite the expansive dicta appearing in part IV of that opinion, the Court did not intend to reshape the course of its Robinson-Patman Act jurisprudence in any significant way. The Court's opinion operated well within the confines of established Robinson-Patman Act doctrine, even if its searching review of the evidence presented at trial represented a rare foray into the arena of factual error correction. After Reeder-Simco, however, many commentators emphasized the dicta in part IV …
Gaining Momentum: A Review Of Recent Developments Surrounding The Expansion Of The Copyright Misuse Doctrine And Analylsis Of The Doctrine In Its Current Form, Neal Hartzog
Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review
The United States intellectual property ("IP") system is the foundation for incentives for authors and inventors to create and invent so that their work will be distributed to the public for the betterment of society. These incentives, in the form of limited monopolies over creations via patents, copyrights, and trademarks, are becoming increasingly important as the United States depends upon intellectual property to sustain its economy. As the intellectual property industry grows, it becomes vital to preserve the impetus behind its creation: the public good, or more specifically, the public's ability to make use of and enjoy new ideas and …
A Seed Germinates: Unjust Discharge Reform Heads Toward Full Flower, Theodore J. St. Antoine
A Seed Germinates: Unjust Discharge Reform Heads Toward Full Flower, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
In this paper, I shall briefly review the nature and limitations of the theories most frequently invoked by the courts in dealing with wrongful dismissal. I shall then examine the major arguments for and against a general overhaul of the doctrine of employment at will. Lastly, I shall discuss some of the particular questions that will have to be addressed in fashioning a statutory solution.
Failing Companies And The Antitrust Laws, Janet L. Mcdavid
Failing Companies And The Antitrust Laws, Janet L. Mcdavid
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This article will examine two areas in which the courts have given financially-troubled companies special treatment under the antitrust laws. Part I discusses the acquisition of a failing company, which may constitute a judicially-created exemption from section 7 of the Clayton Act. Part II considers certain cases involving failing companies whose conduct is challenged under section 1 of the Sherman Act.
Attempts And Monopolization: A Mildly Expansionary Answer To The Prophylactic Riddle Of Section Two, Edward H. Cooper
Attempts And Monopolization: A Mildly Expansionary Answer To The Prophylactic Riddle Of Section Two, Edward H. Cooper
Articles
The efforts of activist antitrust lawyers to redefine the contours of attempted monopolization under section 2 of the Sherman Act1 have again forced the courts to wrestle with the classic antitrust dilemma: How far must single-firm competitive behavior be restrained to make competition free? The answer given by the majority of current decisions is that, absent some other established offense, single-firm behavior should be prohibited as an attempt to monopolize only when there is a specific intent to monopolize and the firm has come dangerously near to unlawful monopolization. A contemporary challenge to this orthodox answer is rapidly gaining force. …
Collective Bargaining And The Antitrust Laws, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Collective Bargaining And The Antitrust Laws, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Other Publications
A central aim of the antitrust laws is the promotion of competition. A central aim of collective bargaining is the elimination of competition-according to classical trade union theory, the elimination of wage competition among all employees doing the same job in the same industry. Given these disparate aims, the antitrust laws and collective bargaining will almost inevitably tend to clash. To harmonize them, the type of competition which the law is intended to foster must be carefully distinguished from the type of competition which union-employer bargaining can properly displace. The Supreme Court's last major effort to draw the demarcation line …
Unfair Competition, Edward S. Rogers
Unfair Competition, Edward S. Rogers
Michigan Law Review
In the recent case of Internationd Newes Seraice v. The Associated Press (U. S. Sup. Ct. Dec. 23, i918), suit was brought by the Associated Press to restrain the defendant from its systematic appropriation of complainant's news, first, by bribing employes; second, by inducing' Associated Press members to violate its by-laws and permit defendant to obtain news from publication; and third, by copying news from bulletin boards and from early editions of complainant's members' newspaper and selling this, bodily or after re-writing it, to defendant's customers. The question as to the right of complainant to relief against the third of …