Antitrust and Trade Regulation Commons^™

Regulation Of Business - Sherman Act - Patent Pool Agreements Which Restricts Fields Of Use, Martin F. Roston S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

DeVlieg, the owner of three major patents in the machine tool field, licensed his inventions to several machine tool manufacturers. Subsequently, he and the licensees formed a new corporation, Associated Patents, Inc., a patent holding company, to which he assigned his patents. Each party to the agreement owned an equal share of API. The agreement contained provisions for the granting back to API of any improvement patents acquired by the parties and it also restricted the use of the patents by each party to carefully circumscribed fields of use. Held, a patent pool agreement restricting fields of use is …

Some Abuses Of Antitrust Prosecution: The Investment Bankers Case, Ralph M. Carson

Michigan Law Review

The epochal decision of Judge Medina on October 14, 1953, in United States v. Morgan has already been the subject of adverse criticism by the losing Government counsel and defense by an opposing lawyer. Professor Steffen's grief at the ruin of his handiwork has led him into the impropriety of attacking with unwarranted epithet a thoroughly considered decision by one of the most eminent judges now sitting in our federal courts and into the more symptomatic fault of attributing to the new chief of the Antitrust Division political motivation in his decision not to appeal. He has the assurance to …

Regulation Of Business - Fair Trade Laws - Application Of The Mcguire Act To Mail Order Sales Emanating In A Non-Fair Trade Jurisdiction, Lawrence W. Sperling S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Defendant's store was located in the District of Columbia, a jurisdiction which does not have a statute permitting resale price maintenance. The defendant sent advertising and made mail order sales of plaintiff's product to consumers in Maryland, at prices below the resale price established by the plaintiff in accordance with the Maryland Fair Trade Act. Plaintiff sued to enjoin such advertising and sales on the ground that they were violations of the Maryland statute. On defendant's motion to dismiss, held, overruled without prejudice. On the main point in issue, however, the court ruled that neither the Maryland Fair Trade …

Recent Decisions, Various Editors

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Patents And Antitrust: Peaceful Coxeistence?, S. Chesterfield Oppenheim

Michigan Law Review

My thesis for this paper is based upon developments which appear, as of 1955, to bring into clearer focus the process by which the earned differential advantages of patent rights are being adjusted to the prohibitory dixits of antitrust law. This is part of the never-ending governmental function of balancing stability of legal rights against the desired flexibility resulting from evolutionary growth. We can only chart the directions of the current trends. Generalizations from this panorama should not be overdrawn or artificially simplified. Both the patent and antitrust spectra are arranged in degrees. The edges of certainty are blurred in …

Regulation Of Business - Boxing And Theater Now Within Scope Of The Sherman Act, Norman A. Zilber S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

The United States instituted two civil antitrust actions under section 4 of the Sherman Act claiming that defendants were acting in restraint of trade in their respective fields. Defendant Shubert was engaged in the multistate business of producing, booking, and presenting legitimate theatrical attractions. Defendant International Boxing Club was engaged in the business of promoting professional boxing contests, also on a multistate basis, with an alleged 25 percent of its revenue being derived from the interstate sale of radio, television, and motion picture rights. The district court dismissed both complaints on the authority of Federal Baseball Club v. National League …

The Mcguire Act And The Mail Order Vendor-Commerce Clause Limitations On Anti-Fair Trade Policies

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Patent-Antitrust Problem, Bartholomew Diggins

Michigan Law Review

The Patent-Antitrust section of the Report of the Attorney General's National Committee to Study the Antitrust Laws is an excellent analysis of the existing law and is an invaluable handbook for practitioners in this difficult field. The writer's approach to the problem is different from that of the committee and before commenting specifically on the Report it is only fair to state the writer's views of the problem lest differences in viewpoint give the impression of criticism of the Report.

In any approach to the patent-antitrust problem there is a basic question: does a "patent-antitrust problem" exist? The Report …

Antitrust And Labor, Russell A. Smith

Michigan Law Review

The thirteen-page treatment of the subject of "organized labor" in the Report of the Attorney General's National Committee to Study the Antitrust Laws shows that the committee approached the subject gingerly, and that the counsel of moderation prevailed. The views of those who would change the national policy favoring (or at least tolerating) the existing institutions of trade unionism and collective bargaining by subjecting unions to "monopoly" standards are not discussed in the Report. The result is a limited and generalized approach, which holds that some kinds of union practices "aimed directly at commercial market restraints" run counter to …

Antitrust Policy In Distribution, Kendall B. Debevoise

Michigan Law Review

The American genius lies quite as much in distribution as in manufacturing. Other peoples have demonstrated equal or greater creative ability in many fields. And it is debatable whether their talents are any less at mass production given adequate economic demand. But they have nowhere shown the American genius for distribution. It is axiomatic that if you manufacture in Detroit and your potential customer lives in New York, you need mutual friends. We seem to have figured out better ways to provide better friends for this purpose than any other nation.

But manufacturing came first. Someone had to build a …

The Antitrust Laws In Foregin Commerce, Robert A. Nitschke

Michigan Law Review

The Sherman Act applies to trade or commerce "with foreign nations." Are there differences in the act's application to foreign trade compared with its application to domestic commerce? The Attorney General's National Committee to Study the Antitrust Laws was constituted at a time when this question was pressing for an answer.

During the 1920's and 1930's, the international cartel movement was in full Hood. American companies participated in some of these international arrangements, often in the belief that they were a necessary condition for world trade and upon the legal premise that restrictions adjunctive to patent and know-how licenses were …

Antitrust Administration And Enforcement, John T. Chadwell

Michigan Law Review

The importance of the nation's antitrust policy requires that administration and enforcement powers and techniques be equal to the huge task of effectively safeguarding competition. The recommendations of the Attorney General's Committee represent a statesmanlike effort to balance the need for effective enforcement with the need for the preservation of fairness and the conservation of time and resources in antitrust litigation. Some of the recommendations will undoubtedly engender heated controversy; others seem relatively uncontroversial.

Many individual topics are dealt with in the Report of the committee and space does not permit comment upon all of them. The following discussion is …

The Analogous Development Of The Fair Trade And Tax Limitation Movements, Frank E. Packard

Cleveland State Law Review

The Fair Trade Act, or resale price maintenance, movement began in 1913. The movement to limit federal income, gift, and estate tax rates to twenty-five per cent in peacetime commenced in 1939. The fair trade act movement was spearheaded by the American Fair Trade League. The federal income, gift, and estate tax rate limitation movement is spearheaded by the Western Tax Council.

A New Look At Antitrust Laws, Morton Steinberg

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Basic Antitrust Concepts, Kenneth S. Carlston

Michigan Law Review

It is the function of this paper to summarize and evaluate chapter I of the Report of the Attorney General's National Committee to Study the Antitrust Laws. It will first be necessary to note briefly the circumstances attendant upon the appointment of the committee, its delegated function, its conception of its task and its working methods. No helpful critique of its accomplishments can be made unless its purpose and mode of operation are taken as the starting point. While many tasks remain to be done in the study of the antitrust laws, the committee's work should be appraised only …

Insurance (Annual Survey Of The Law Of New Jersey, 1954-55), Robert E. Rodes

Journal Articles

The survey year seems, as far as the law of Insurance in New Jersey is concerned, to have been more portentous than eventful. Across the river in New York, it has been decided that a company may be a partial subscriber to a rating bureau. Now, another company is attempting, with at least partial success, to write certain types of fire insurance there at 20% less than the bureau rate. These inroads on the bureau structure in New York will certainly have an effect throughout the country in the years to come. But what came to New York with a …

The Statute Of Limitations In Antitrust Litigation, Carl H. Fulda, Howard C. Klemme

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Statute Of Limitations In Antitrust Litigation Ii, Carl H. Fulda, Howard C. Klemme

Publications

No abstract provided.

Product Competition In The Relevant Market Under The Sherman Act, David Macdonald

Michigan Law Review

The correct delimitation of the relevant market is the problem to be examined here. First the legal development of market concepts will be traced. Then, with the objective of coalescing the legal and economic concepts of .the market, a test will be proposed with which to measure the correct market in any given case.

Lectures On Federal Antitrust Laws, University Of Michigan Summer Institute On International And Comparative Law., David R. Kochery

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Regulation Of Business-Discriminatory Practices In The Form Of Advertising Allowances, Services, And Facilities Under The Robinson-Patman Act, Rinaldo L. Bianchi

Michigan Law Review

This comment will deal solely with the last two forms of discrimination prohibited by sections 2(d) and (e) of the Robinson-Patman Act, and will attempt to illustrate the present state of the law and offer a possible alternative construction and method of implementation of these sections. A recent ruling of the FTC in a group of cases appears to be significant with respect to controversial aspects of sections 2(d) and (e), and indicative of the present attitude of the Commission in the search for an adequate standard by which honest businessmen may keep within the confines of the law. These …

Regulation Of Business-Sherman Act-Conscious Parallelism Of Action, Arthur M. Wisehart

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff attempted to lease first-run films from defendants, major motion picture distributors, for his new theater located six miles from downtown Baltimore in a suburban shopping center. When the defendants, acting separately, refused to make first-run leases to plaintiff, he brought an action for treble damages and an injunction, alleging that he had been injured by a national conspiracy to restrict first-run features to downtown theaters. Plaintiff contended that his showing of conscious parallelism of action on the part of the defendants established an antitrust violation as a matter of law, and that the only question left for the jury …

Interlocking Directorates: A Study In Desultory Regulation

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Regulation Of Business - Proof Of Seller's Costs In Robinson-Patman Act Buyer Proceedings, Arthur M. Wisehart S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

The purposes of this comment are to analyze the holding of the Court in the Automatic Canteen case and to relate the language of the opinion to the more general problem of defining the extent of buyer responsibility under section 2(f). As a preliminary matter, however, it is necessary to examine the pertinent statutory provisions. Section 2(f) of the Robinson-Patman Act makes it unlawful for buyers in interstate commerce" ... knowingly to induce or receive a · discrimination in price which is prohibited by this section." In other words, it prohibits buyers from knowingly inducing or receiving the benefit of …

Lectures On Federal Antitrust Laws, University Of Michigan Law School

Summer Institute on International and Comparative Law

The papers delivered at the 1953 Institute deal chiefly with current problems and policy questions under three major federal antitrust laws - the Sherman Act, the Federal Trade Commission Act, and the Clayton Act, including the Robinson-Patman Amendment. These statutes affect the daily operations of all sizes and types of American business. Judicial interpretations and the administration and enforcement of these laws involve both legal and economic criteria and tests of competition and monopoly. The Institute provided a forum for authoritative analysis of these aspects in order to create a better understanding of the antitrust laws as one of the …

Integration Of Public Utility Holding Companies, Robert F. Ritchie

Michigan Legal Studies Series

The Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 was one of the most controversial pieces of legislation ever enacted by Congress, but despite this fact it has withstood numerous and vigorous attacks upon its constitutionality and, further, it has never been amended in any material respect. The Securities and Exchange Commission was confronted in 1935 with one of the most difficult administrative tasks in modern history. How it met and resolved the difficult problems of geographical and economic integration, arising under the so-called "death sentence" provisions of this Act, is the subject matter of this publication.

The research involved in …

The Treble Damage Bonanza: New Doctrines Of Damages In Private Antitrust Suits, Homer Clark

Michigan Law Review

Section 7 of the Sherman Act, as amended by section 4 of the Clayton Act, gives a private right of action for treble damages to persons injured "in . . .business or property by reason of anything forbidden in the antitrust laws. . . ." The lucrative possibilities of this section for plaintiffs and their attorneys have recently received sufficient notoriety to arouse curiosity concerning the legal doctrines involved.

The purposes of the section have been said to include compensation for those affected by violations, prevention of violations, and assistance for the government in discovering and bringing before the courts …

Taxation - Federal Income Tax - Exemplary Damages As Taxable Income To Recipient, Eliot Gerber S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Petitioner, a motion picture exhibitor, sued certain motion picture distributors under the private remedy provisions of the federal antitrust acts. Judgment was had against the distributors for treble damages. Upon failure of petitioner to report as income the amount recovered above its actual loss of profits, the Commissioner determined deficiencies in petitioner's income tax. Held, the amount recovered above actual loss of profits was exemplary damages and not taxable income. William Goldman Theatres, Inc., 19 T.C. 637 (1953).

"Fair And Equitable" Distribution Of Voting Power Under The Public Utility Holding Company Act Of 1935, Leo W. Leary

Michigan Law Review

In the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 Congress gave the Securities and Exchange Commission the task of investigating voting power distribution among security holders in electric and gas holding companies and their subsidiaries. If the Commission finds that the corporate structure or continued existence of any company in a holding company system "unfairly or inequitably" distributes voting power among the investors in the system, it is the Commission's duty to order the offending corporation to take "such steps as the Commission shall find necessary" to cure this condition. This paper is an attempt to ascertain what the Commission …

Corporations - Shareholders - Right To Bring Derivative Action For Treble Damages Under Antitrust Laws, William K. Davenport S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff, owner of 50 percent of the stock in a theater corporation, brought a derivative action in federal court for treble damages for loss of profits allegedly suffered from defendant's violation of the antitrust laws. The district court sustained defendant's motion to dismiss. On appeal to the court of appeals, held, reversed and remanded. Under the new federal rules, a stockholder may bring a derivative action for treble damages under the antitrust laws. Fanchon & Marco, Inc. v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., (2d Cir. 1953) 202 F. (2d) 731.