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The Procompetitive Interest In Intellectual Property Law, Thomas F. Cotter

William & Mary Law Review

When government recognizes intellectual property (IP) rights, it is often viewed as sanctioning the existence of private "monopolies," in contrast to the general antimonopoly thrust of the antitrust laws. And yet, on occasion IP law itself condemns conduct on the part of IP owners-or excuses otherwise infringing activity on the part of IP defendants-expressly for the purpose of promoting competition. It does so even though antitrust law -if one were to apply it at all under analogous circumstances-would not find anticompetitive harm without conducting a more thorough analysis of whether the antitrust defendant possesses power over a well-defined market. Salient …