Supreme Court of the United States Commons^™

Antitrust Changeup: How A Single Antitrust Reform Could Be A Home Run For Minor League Baseball Players, Jeremy Ulm

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In 1890, Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act to protect competition in the marketplace. Federal antitrust law has developed to prevent businesses from exerting unfair power on their employees and customers. Specifically, the Sherman Act prevents competitors from reaching unreasonable agreements amongst themselves and from monopolizing markets. However, not all industries have these protections.

Historically, federal antitrust law has not governed the “Business of Baseball.” The Supreme Court had the opportunity to apply antitrust law to baseball in Federal Baseball Club, Incorporated v. National League of Professional Baseball Clubs; however, the Court held that the Business of Baseball was not …

Antitrust And The Movement Of Technology, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

Patents create strong incentives for collaborative development. For many technologies fixed costs are extremely high in relation to variable costs. A second feature of technology that encourages collaborative development is the need for interoperability or common standards. Third, in contrast to traditional commons, intellectual property commons are almost always nonrivalrous on the supply side. If ten producers all own the rights to make a product covered by a patent, each one can make as many units as it pleases without limiting the number that others can make. That might seem to be a good thing, but considered ex ante it …

Unilateral Refusals To Deal, Vertical Integration, And The Essential Facility Doctrine, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

Where it applies, the essential facility doctrine requires a monopolist to share its "essential facility." Since the only qualifying exclusionary practice is the refusal to share the facility itself, the doctrine comes about as close as antitrust ever does to condemning "no fault" monopolization. There is no independent justification for an essential facility doctrine separate and apart from general Section 2 doctrine governing the vertically integrated monopolist's refusal to deal. In its Trinko decision the Supreme Court placed that doctrine about where it should be. The Court did not categorically reject all unilateral refusal to deal claims, but it placed …