Seattle University School of Law
Duke Law School
University of Florida Levin College of Law
University of Baltimore School of Law
Quinlan & Crisham Ltd.
Seikei University
SelectedWorks
Parker-Hannifin Corporation
Reasonable Patent Exhaustion,
2017
University of Pennsylvania Law School
Reasonable Patent Exhaustion, Herbert J. Hovenkamp
Faculty Scholarship
A lengthy tug of war between the Supreme Court and the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals may have ended when the Supreme Court held that the sale of a patented article exhausts the patentee seller’s rights to enforce restrictions on that article through patent infringement suits. Further, reversing the Federal Circuit, the parties cannot bargain around this rule through the seller’s specification of conditions stated at the time of sale, no matter how clear. No inquiry need be made into the patentee’s market power, anticompetitive effects, or other types of harms, whether enforcement of the condition is ...
Antitrust And The Design Of Production,
2017
University of Pennsylvania Law School
Antitrust And The Design Of Production, Herbert J. Hovenkamp
Faculty Scholarship
Both economics and antitrust policy have traditionally distinguished “production” from “distribution.” The former is concerned with how products are designed and built, the latter with how they are placed into the hands of consumers. Nothing in the language of the antitrust laws suggests much concern with production as such. Although courts do not view it that way, even per se unlawful naked price fixing among rivals is a restraint on distribution rather than production. Naked price fixing assumes a product that has already been designed and built, and the important cartel decision is what should be each firm’s output ...
Antitrust Policy And Inequality Of Wealth,
2017
University of Pennsylvania Law School
Antitrust Policy And Inequality Of Wealth, Herbert J. Hovenkamp
Faculty Scholarship
Why would anyone want to use antitrust law as a wealth distribution device when far more explicit statutory tools are available for that purpose? One feature of antitrust is its open-textured, nonspecific statutes that are interpreted by judges. As a result, using antitrust to redistribute wealth may be a way of invoking the judicial process without having to go to Congress or a state legislature that is likely to be unsympathetic. Of course, a corollary is that someone attempting to use antitrust law to redistribute wealth will have to rely on the existing antitrust statutes rather than obtaining a new ...
Let The State Decide: The Efficient Antitrust Enforcer And The Avoidance Of Anticompetitive Remedies,
2017
Pepperdine University
Let The State Decide: The Efficient Antitrust Enforcer And The Avoidance Of Anticompetitive Remedies, Andrew J. Fuller
The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law
If the antitrust remedy a private party pursues would likely have anticompetitive consequences, would only the government constitute an efficient enforcer of the antitrust laws? Imagine that a plaintiff sues for a remedy so large that the award of the remedy would meaningfully increase market concentration by sending the defendants into bankruptcy. Is such a plaintiff an efficient enforcer of the antitrust laws? Should courts hold that in this situation only the government should be able to challenge the alleged conduct? These questions have gone unaddressed in academic literature because litigation rarely raises the specter of the anticompetitive remedy. Recently ...
Appraising Merger Efficiencies,
2017
University of Pennsylvania Law School
Appraising Merger Efficiencies, Herbert J. Hovenkamp
Faculty Scholarship
Mergers of business firms violate the antitrust laws when they threaten to lessen competition, which generally refers to a price increase resulting from a reduction in output. However, a merger that threatens competition may also enable the post-merger firm to reduce its costs or improve its product. Attitudes toward mergers are heavily driven by assumptions about efficiency gains. If mergers of competitors never produced efficiency gains but simply reduced the number of competitors, a strong presumption against them would be warranted. We tolerate most mergers because of a background, highly generalized belief that most or at least many produce cost ...
The Rule Of Reason,
2017
University of Pennsylvania Law School
The Rule Of Reason, Herbert J. Hovenkamp
Faculty Scholarship
Antitrust’s rule of reason was born out of a thirty year (1897-1927) division among Supreme Court Justices about the proper way to assess multi-firm restraints on competition. By the late 1920s the basic contours of the rule for restraints among competitors was roughly established. Antitrust policy toward vertical restraints remained much more unstable, however, largely because their effects were so poorly understood.
This article provides a litigation field guide for antitrust claims under the rule of reason – or more precisely, for situations when application of the rule of reason is likely. At the time pleadings are drafted and even ...
The Ncaa And The Rule Of Reason,
2017
University of Pennsylvania Law School
The Ncaa And The Rule Of Reason, Herbert J. Hovenkamp
Faculty Scholarship
This brief essay considers the use of antitrust’s rule of reason in assessing challenges to rule making by the NCAA. In particular, it looks at the O’Bannon case, which involved challenges to NCAA rules limiting the compensation of student athletes under the NCAA rubric that protects the “amateur” status of collegiate athletes. Within that rubric, the Ninth Circuit got the right answer.
That outcome leads to a broader question, however: should the NCAA’s long held goal, frequently supported by the courts, of preserving athletic amateurism be jettisoned? Given the dual role that colleges play, that is a ...
Progressive Antitrust,
2017
University of Pennsylvania Law School
Progressive Antitrust, Herbert J. Hovenkamp
Faculty Scholarship
Several American political candidates and administrations have both run and served under the “progressive” banner for more than a century, right through the 2016 election season. For the most part these have pursued interventionist antitrust policies, reflecting a belief that markets are fragile and in need of repair, that certain interest groups require greater protection, or in some cases that antitrust policy is an extended arm of regulation. This paper argues that most of this progressive antitrust policy was misconceived, including that reflected in the 2016 antitrust plank of the Democratic Party. The progressive state is best served by a ...
Vertical Merger Enforcement Actions: 1994–2016,
2017
Georgetown University Law Center
Vertical Merger Enforcement Actions: 1994–2016, Steven C. Salop, Daniel P. Culley
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
This is a revised listing of vertical merger enforcement actions by the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission since 1994. This revised listing includes 52 vertical matters beginning in 1994 through the end of 2016. It includes challenges and certain proposed transactions that are known to have been abandoned in the face of Agency concerns. This listing can be treated as an Appendix to Steven C. Salop and Daniel P. Culley, Revising the Vertical Merger Guidelines: Policy Issues and an Interim Guide for Practitioners, 4 Journal of Antitrust Enforcement 1 (2016).
Nba-Age Restrictions: Should The Nba Follow In The Footsteps Of Major League Baseball?,
2017
Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University
Nba-Age Restrictions: Should The Nba Follow In The Footsteps Of Major League Baseball?, Bryan Kelly
Pace Intellectual Property, Sports & Entertainment Law Forum
This paper will discuss the outlook of current NBA prospects and the development of age restrictions. It will also shed light on several key cases and Collective Bargaining Agreements including: Wood v. National Basketball Association, and Denver Rockets v. All Pro Management, Inc. and the NBA CBA. After that, an analysis of Sherman Antitrust Law and current case law concerning age restrictions in sports, and analyze the possibility for age-restrictions to be argued through the court system. Finally, this paper will look into the NBPA’s duty of representation towards NBA prospects and how the NBPA can take ideas from ...
A Case Of Overcorrection: How The Ftc’S Regulation Of “Unfair Acts And Practices” Is Unfair To Small Businesses,
2017
College of William & Mary Law School
A Case Of Overcorrection: How The Ftc’S Regulation Of “Unfair Acts And Practices” Is Unfair To Small Businesses, Jennifer L. West
William & Mary Law Review
No abstract provided.
The Foreign Trade Antitrust Improvements Act: Do We Really Want To Return To American Banana?,
2017
University of Maine School of Law
The Foreign Trade Antitrust Improvements Act: Do We Really Want To Return To American Banana?, Joseph P. Bauer
Maine Law Review
It keeps getting worse and worse. Over the past three and a half decades, the Supreme Court has made countless changes to substantive antitrust doctrine, making successful assertion of an antitrust claim more and more difficult. We have known for at least a century—at least since the Standard Oil decision—that the language in section 1 of the Sherman Act, providing that “every contract, combination . . . , or conspiracy, in restraint of trade . . . , is declared to be illegal” is not to be read literally. “Every” does not mean “every.” It means only “some”—generally, only those restraints of trade which are ...
The Role Of Antitrust Principles In Patent Monopolies: The Third Circuit Applies Antitrust Scrutiny To No-Ag Patent Settlements In Smithkline,
2017
Boston College Law School
The Role Of Antitrust Principles In Patent Monopolies: The Third Circuit Applies Antitrust Scrutiny To No-Ag Patent Settlements In Smithkline, Meghan Fay
Boston College Law Review
On June 26, 2015, in King Drug Co. of Florence v. Smithkline Beecham Corp., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that no-authorized generic agreements (“no-AG agreements”), in which a pioneer pharmaceutical manufacturer agrees not to introduce a generic drug, are subject to antitrust scrutiny under the Sherman Act. This Comment argues that the Third Circuit correctly extended the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Federal Trade Commission v. Actavis to non-cash settlement agreements. In Actavis, the Court held that a “reverse-payment settlement,” which compensates a generic manufacturer to delay market entry, creates monopolistic consequences and ...
Weaponizing Citizen Suits: Second Circuit Revises The Burden Of Proof For Proving Sham Citizen Petitions In Apotex V. Acorda Therapeutics,
2017
Boston College Law School
Weaponizing Citizen Suits: Second Circuit Revises The Burden Of Proof For Proving Sham Citizen Petitions In Apotex V. Acorda Therapeutics, Franklin Liu
Boston College Law Review
In 2016, in Apotex Inc. v. Acorda Therapeutics, Inc., the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that a generic drug company could not rely solely on the timing of the Food and Drug Administration’s (“FDA’s”) disposition of a citizen suit and approval of a generic application to state a claim under the Sherman Act based on sham litigation. By contrast, in 2009, in In re DDAVP Direct Purchaser Antitrust Litigation, the Second Circuit held that precisely such evidence was sufficient to state a Sherman Act claim. This Comment argues that the Second Circuit’s ...
Patent Pools And Related Technology Sharing,
2017
Northwestern University
Patent Pools And Related Technology Sharing, Erik Hovenkamp, Herbert J. Hovenkamp
Faculty Scholarship
A patent "pool" is an arrangement under which patent holders in a common technology commit their patents to a single holder, who then licenses them out to the original patentees and perhaps also to outsiders. The payoffs include both revenue earned as a licensor, and technology acquired by pool members as licensees. Public effects can also be significant. For example, technology sharing of complementary patents can improve product quality and variety. In some information technology markets pools can prevent patents from becoming a costly obstacle to innovation by clearing channels of technology transfer. By contrast, a pool's aggregate output ...
Buying Monopoly: Antitrust Limits On Damages For Externally Acquired Patents,
2017
Northwestern University
Buying Monopoly: Antitrust Limits On Damages For Externally Acquired Patents, Erik N. Hovenkamp, Herbert J. Hovenkamp
Faculty Scholarship
The “monopoly” authorized by the Patent Act refers to the exclusionary power of individual patents. That is not the same thing as the acquisition of individual patent rights into portfolios that dominate a market, something that the Patent Act never justifies and that the antitrust laws rightfully prohibit.
Most patent assignments are procompetitive and serve to promote the efficient commercialization of patented inventions. However, patent acquisitions may also be used to combine substitute patents from external patentees, giving the acquirer an unearned monopoly position in the relevant technology market. A producer requires only one of the substitutes, but by acquiring ...
The Public Trust As An Antimonopoly Doctrine,
2017
Lewis & Clark Law School
The Public Trust As An Antimonopoly Doctrine, Michael C. Blumm, Aurora Paulsen Moses
Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review
The public trust doctrine originated—and has persisted in American law—as antimonopoly protection. From the time of its recognition by American courts in the early nineteenth century, the doctrine has protected the public against private monopolization of natural resources, beginning with tidal waters and wild animals. Ensuing public trust case law has extended the scope of trust protection to other important natural resources, including non-tidal and non-navigable waters, and land-based resources like parks. Courts are now considering the trust doctrine’s application to the atmosphere. Although there is a considerable body of legal scholarship on the public trust, the ...
Troubled Waters Between U.S. And European Antitrust,
2017
University of Florida Levin College of Law
Troubled Waters Between U.S. And European Antitrust, D. Daniel Sokol
Michigan Law Review
Review of The Atlantic Divide in Antitrust: An Examination of US and EU Competition Policy by Daniel J. Gifford and Robert T. Kudrle.
The Costs Of Free: Commodification, Bundling And Concentration,
2017
University of Southern California
The Costs Of Free: Commodification, Bundling And Concentration, Jonathan M. Barnett
University of Southern California Legal Studies Working Paper Series
Digital markets offer abundant free content but exhibit extreme concentration among content aggregation intermediaries. These characteristics are linked. In commoditized weak-IP markets, firms earn revenues by bundling free content for users with positively priced advertising services for firms. Intermediaries promote content commoditization, and the resulting reallocation of market rents from content producers to content aggregators, through free content distribution and political-influence activities that weaken copyright protections. The expected welfare effects raise concern. Scale economies, network effects, “infinite inventory”, ecosystem effects, and learning effects promote winner-take-all outcomes in the intermediary market while weak IP rights skew investment toward low-cost, short-lived projects ...
Do Patent Challenges Increase Competition?,
2017
University of Notre Dame
Do Patent Challenges Increase Competition?, Stephen Yelderman
Stephen Yelderman
As a general rule, judges and scholars believe settlement is a good thing. But for nearly a century, the Supreme Court has said that patent litigation is categorically different, since it offers the chance to increase competition by freeing the public from the burdens of a monopoly. Based on this theory, and in the hopes of seeing more patent litigation fought to completion, the Court has overturned long-standing common-law doctrines, declined to enforce otherwise-valid contracts, and—in the recent case of Federal Trade Commission v Actavis, Inc—subjected patent settlements to scrutiny under the antitrust laws. Similar reasoning has resulted ...
