Law Commons^™

"Several Healthy Steps Away": New & Improved Products In Section 337 Investigations, 8 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 309 (2009), Steven E. Adkins, John Evans

John Evans

A business that imports “new and improved,” or redesigned, products into the United States should be aware of the procedures available to lessen the risk of violating standing orders of the United States International Trade Commission (“Commission”). In order to ensure that these products gain entry without violating an ITC order and accruing substantial penalties, it is imperative that the business know its options. Whether it requests a Customs ruling or uses a certification, or whether it petitions for an advisory opinion from the Commission, the business must be able to maneuver. This nuts-and-bolts guide provides examples and information on …

Definitions, Religion, And Free Exercise Guarantees, Mark Strasser

Mark Strasser

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects the free exercise of religion. Non-religious practices do not receive those same protections, which makes the ability to distinguish between religious and non-religious practices important. Regrettably, members of the Court have been unable to agree about how to distinguish the religious from the non-religious—sometimes, the implicit criteria focus on the sincerity of the beliefs, sometimes the strength of the beliefs or the role that they play in an individual’s life, and sometimes the kind of beliefs. In short, the Court has virtually guaranteed an incoherent jurisprudence by sending contradictory signals with …

A Critical Appraisal Of The Legal Framework For Mergers And Acquisitions In Nigeria, Oluwaseun Viyon Ojo

Oluwaseun Viyon Ojo

ABSTRACT Mergers and Acquisitions is popularly gaining ground as a corporate option and strategy amongst companies desirous of staying afloat in business, increasing profitability, wanting expansion and complying with regulatory directives .As such, it bears similarly an important status in the Nigerian Company law and, hopefully there exists a legal framework for its regulation under relevant Statutes and regulations within the corporate sector. This research provides a comprehensive analysis of the concept of mergers and acquisitions from the definitional perspective, reasons for and types with reference to the relevant source materials on the concept. The paper will consider the history …

En Torno A La Relevancia Jurídica De Una Estrategia Empresarial Consolidada Y Subyacente: La Obsolescencia Programada (About The Juridical Relevance Of An Underlying And Consolidated Business Strategy: The Planned Obsolescence), Jesús A. Soto

Jesús Alfonso Soto Pineda

El artículo presenta la obsolescencia programada, como estrategia empresarial, basada en el diseño, planificación, proyección y control de la vida útil de los productos, con el objetivo de dinamizar la demanda y estimular el consumo; impulsando a los particulares a adquirir tras la pérdida de funcionalidad de sus bienes o su caducidad. Exponiendo igualmente los casos de mayor trascendencia que han llevado tal estrategia hasta nuestros días, haciendo hincapié en el sector tecnológico y en uno de sus exponentes de más notoriedad, la empresa multinacional norteamericana Apple. Deslindando a su vez, los caracteres que le otorgan relevancia ética a la …

Entwicklungsetappen Im Recht Gegen Wettbewerbsbeschränkungen, Christian Alexander

Christian Alexander

Schriftfassung eines Vortrages auf der Veranstaltung "1913 - 2013. 100 Jahre Wirtschaftsrecht".

Private Rechtsdurchsetzung Im Regulierungsrecht, Christian Alexander

Christian Alexander

Schriftfassung eines Vortrags auf dem Gründungssymposium der Vereinigung für das gesamte Regulierungsrecht, Berlin

All-Units Discounts As A Partial Foreclosure Device, Yong Chao, Guofu Tan

Yong Chao

All-units discounts (AUD) are pricing schemes that lower a buyer’s marginal price on every unit purchased when the buyer’s purchase exceeds or is equal to a pre-specified threshold. The AUD and related conditional rebates are commonly used in both final-goods and intermediate-goods markets. Although the existing literature has thus far focused on interpreting the AUD as a price discrimination tool, investment incentive program, or rent-shifting instrument, the antitrust concerns on the AUD and related conditional rebates are often their plausible exclusionary effects.

In this article, we investigate strategic effects of volume-threshold based AUD used by a dominant firm in the …

Antitrust And The Patent System: A Reexamination, Herbert Hovenkamp

Herbert Hovenkamp

Since the federal antitrust laws were first passed they have cycled through extreme positions on the relationship between competition law and the patent system. Previous studies of antitrust and the patent system have generally assumed that patents are valid, discrete, and generally of high quality in the sense that they further innovation. As a result, increasing the returns to patenting increases the incentive to do socially valuable innovation. Further, if the returns to the patentee exceed the social losses caused by increased exclusion, the tradeoff is positive and antitrust should not interfere. If a patent does nothing to further innovation, …

Is The Turkey Halal? Genetically Modified Animal Feed Regulation Where East Meets West, Jennifer Spreng

Jennifer E Spreng

Turkey’s Biosafety Law (2010) imposes some of the world’s most stringent restrictions on the import, release and marketing of genetically modified foodstuffs. The Biosafety Board has not approved a single food event; the Council of State has suspended approval of MON 810; Turks have endured meat and milk price spikes; herders are going bankrupt for lack of affordable feed; and importers have been arrested and prosecuted for trace contamination with unapproved GMOs. It’s a pox an all their houses: Turks want nothing do with GM foodstuffs.

The culprit? The “precautionary principle,” which authorizes taking precautions in the face of scientific …

Federalism, First Amendment & Patents: The Fraud Fallacy, Robin C. Feldman

Robin C Feldman

The Actavis Inference: Theory And Practice, Aaron Edlin, Herbert Hovenkamp, Scott Hemphill, Carl Shapiro

Aaron Edlin

In FTC v. Actavis, Inc., the Supreme Court considered “reverse payment” settlements of patent infringement litigation. In such a settlement, a patentee pays the alleged infringer to settle, and the alleged infringer agrees not to enter the market for a period of time. The Court held that a reverse payment settlement violates antitrust law if the patentee is paying to avoid competition. The core insight of Actavis is the Actavis Inference: a large and otherwise unexplained payment, combined with delayed entry, supports a reasonable inference of harm to consumers from lessened competition.

This paper is an effort to assist courts …

Living With Monsanto, Daryl Lim

Daryl Lim

Bowman v. Monsanto Co. signaled the end of an era of seed saving. Farmers must buy new seed for replanting or risk patent infringement. The familiar rhetoric of oppressed farmers belies the fact that Monsanto’s success rests in part on farmers prizing its innovations. Current trends indicate that this reliance on Monsanto will continue. The Supreme Court correctly found for Monsanto. However, future cases must iron out the kinks in the Bowman decision. Despite the Court’s best intentions, inadvertence cannot shield farmers from patent infringement. The Court must also make it clear that patentees cannot use licensing restrictions to claw …

El Ilícito Antitrust, Guido Alpa

Carlos Augusto Acosta Olivo

No abstract provided.

Professors Update 2015, Antitrust Analysis, 7th Ed., Aaron Edlin, Scott Hemphill, Louis Kaplow

Aaron Edlin

Professors Update for Antitrust Analysis, 7th edition Includes updates to American Express v. Italian Colors, North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners v. FTC, Text Messaging, and ZF Meritor v. Eaton.

Living With Monsanto, 2015 Mich. St. L. Rev. 559 (2015), Daryl Lim

Daryl Lim

The E-Books Conspiracy: Crossing The Line Between Applying And Creating Law, Tom Campbell

Tom Campbell

This article responds to John Kirkwood’s Collusion to Control a Powerful Customer: Amazon, E-Books, and Antitrust Policy. Professor Kirkwood argued that in a monopsonistic market (i.e., one where there exists one powerful buyer and many less powerful sellers), or a market in which a buyer has significantly more power than the sellers, collusion on the part of the sellers might be justified, and ought to be a defense to antitrust claims, under certain conditions. This article summarizes Kirkwood’s proposed requirements for invoking this defense and argues that they are overly prescriptive, failing to allow certain instances of beneficial collusion, imposing …