Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

Monopoly Power In The Electronic Information Industry: Why, And So What?, Curt A. Hessler

ExpressO

This "law and economics" article diagnoses why monopoly power infects so many markets in the electronic media, communications, and information technology industries (collectively the "Industry"),and recommends changes to prevailing intellectual property and antitrust doctrines to remedy this problem.

The analysis focuses on a single "norm" -- the maximization of economic value, as defined by standard welfare economic theory. Identifying three distinct functions that operate throughout this otherwise diverse Industry -- authoring, publishing, and distribution -- the article notes that two economic peculiarities characterize most Industry markets: the technical feasibility of "non-rivalrous use" of digitized information products, and the frequent "creative …

Ub Viewpoint – Aol/Microsoft Settlement Could Harm Consumers, Robert H. Lande

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The European Union’S Microsoft Case: No Time For Jingoism, Albert A. Foer, Robert H. Lande

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Anticompetitive Settlement Of Intellectual Property Disputes, Mark D. Janis, Herbert J. Hovenkamp, Mark A. Lemley

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Should China Provide Intellectual Property Protection For Genetically Modified Animals?, Ke Geng

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

The advent of recombinant genetic engineering techniques has revolutionized biotechnology. The biomedicine and biotechnology industries have extensively employed these techniques to improve the quality of agricultural crops and livestock and to create genetically modified organisms ("GMOs") in order to produce drugs. Since as much as twenty-five percent of the world's intellectual property-related trade involves biotechnology, many countries have realized the importance of providing intellectual property protection for biotechnological technologies, including GMOs. In the past decade, China's booming economy has helped make its biotechnological market the fastest growing market in the world. To stimulate innovation and attract private investment in its …

Balancing Patent Rights And Affordability Of Prescription Drugs In Addressing Bio-Terrorism: An Analysis Of In Re Ciprofloxacin Hydrochloride Antitrust Litigation, James T. Gathii

Faculty Publications & Other Works

No abstract provided.

The Internet, Innovation, And Intellectual Property Policy, Philip J. Weiser

Publications

The Internet continues to transform the information industries and challenge intellectual property law to develop a competition policy strategy to regulate networked products. In particular, inventors of "information platforms" that support the viewing of content-be they instant messaging systems, media players, or Web browsers-face a muddled set of legal doctrines that govern the scope of available intellectual property protection. This uncertainty reflects a fundamental debate about what conditions will best facilitate innovation in the information industries--a debate most often played out at the conceptual extremes between the "commons" and "proprietary control" approaches to the Internet and intellectual property policy.

This …

The Bitter Has Some Sweet: Potential Antitrust Enforcement Benefit From Patent Law's Procedural Rules, Joseph S. Miller

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Beyond Napster: Using Antitrust Law To Advance And Enhance Online Music Distribution, Matthew Fagin, Frank Pasquale, Kim Weatherall

Faculty Scholarship

What should be the broad principles guiding the copyright and competition policy governing online music? In short, what are the key concerns or values that we want preserved in relation to the distribution of music online? We will outline the background to the present investigations and existing law in Part I and argue in Part II that these concerns can be encapsulated in two broad areas: (1) the preservation of some scope for private and personal use and (2) the encouragement and growth of a diverse sector for the distribution of copyrighted works online. We also argue that, at least …

Adequacy Of The 1995 Antitrust Guidelines For The Licensing Of Intellectual Property In Complex High Tech Markets, Clovia Hamilton

Winthrop Faculty and Staff Publications

In 1995, the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission adopted new guidelines for those wishing to license intellectual property rights without violating antitrust laws. Designed to provide clarity, these guidelines instead breed confusion because they misunderstand the nature of intellectual property markets and provide insufficient guidance in the most difficult areas. Section I of this article will discuss the basic provisions of the guidelines, especially their treatment of "innovation markets." It argues that government enforcers should focus primarily on activity that creates entry barriers. Understanding the use and misuse of licensing is the key to analyzing barriers in …

Transitions In Ip And Antitrust, Mark D. Janis

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Case Analysis - In Re Buspirone Patent And Antitrust Litigation, Tim Meade

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Section 1 of the Sherman Act criminalizes any conspiracy to restrain trade or commerce within the United States or with foreign nations. Section 2 of the Sherman Act criminalizes any attempt to monopolize any part of trade or commerce within the Unites Stated or with foreign nations.

Antitrust And The Costs Of Standard-Setting: A Commentary On Teece & (And) Sherry Symposium: The Interface Between Intellectual Property Law And Antitrust Law: Commentary, Mark R. Patterson

Faculty Scholarship

The creation of an industry standard is a process that has much in common with the creation of a patented invention. Indeed, if standards are not patentable, it is only because of certain doctrinal peculiarities of patent law. It is therefore important to preserve the incentives for organizations to incur the costs of standard-setting activity, so that society may gain the benefits of the resulting standards. The law can preserve those incentives by treating the contributions of industry standards as distinct from those of inventions that are incorporated in them. More specifically, antitrust law should ensure that the patentees of …

Law And Information Platforms, Philip J. Weiser

Publications

No abstract provided.

Internet Television And Copyright Licensing: Balancing Cents And Sensibility, Michael A. Einhorn

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Miss Scarlett's License Done Gone!: Parody, Satire, And Markets, Michael A. Einhorn

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Afterword: The Role Of The Competition Community In The Patent Law Discourse, Hillary Greene

Faculty Articles and Papers

The Federal Circuit is the most visible point of the intersection between competition and patent law. When a single case contains both competition and patent issues, precedents of that court, including those pertaining to governing legal burdens or presumptions, will be critical. It is worth considering whether and how actual or assumed consumer welfare trade-offs are reflected in those decisions. Additionally, the basic decision to confer patents, and the attendant choices regarding their breadth, scope, and other aspects, also reflect social value judgments that directly implicate competition. The competition community can help both to focus attention upon and to illuminate …

The Intersection Of Intellectual Property And Antitrust Law: In Re Independent Service Organizations Antitrust Litigation, Matthew G. Jacobs, Michael S. Mireles

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Why Are We So Reluctant To "Execute" Microsoft?, Robert H. Lande

All Faculty Scholarship

On June 28, 2001, the D.C. Court of Appeals held that Microsoft has violated the antitrust laws repeatedly, relentlessly, and over a multi-year period. The court ruled eight separate times that Microsoft engaged in conduct that illegally maintained its monopoly in PC operating systems. Despite these strongly worded conclusions concerning Microsoft’s liability, the court was extremely cautious when it considered whether to break up the company. It held that divestiture was a “radical” remedy that should be imposed with “great caution.”

The Perfect Caper?: Private Damages And The Microsoft Case, Robert H. Lande, James Langenfeld

All Faculty Scholarship

As readers of crime novels know, there are many definitions of the perfect caper. Under most, the perpetrator gets to keep its ill-gotten gains and goes unpunished. Even if the perpetrator is arrested and brought to trial, he or she still typically escapes punishment completely due to a variety of unusual circumstances. This is essentially what Professors John E. Lopatka and William H. Page are arguing about Microsoft's actions. They assert that even though Microsoft has violated the antitrust laws, it will not be made to pay for its anticompetitive conduct, at least not by private plaintiffs.

Monopolization, Innovation, And Consumer Welfare, John E. Lopatka, William H. Page

UF Law Faculty Publications

While most commentators and the enforcement agencies voice support for the consumer welfare standard, substantial disagreement exists over when economic theory justifies a presumption of consumer injury. Virtually all would subscribe to the theoretical prediction that an effective cartel will likely inflict consumer injury by reducing output and thus increasing prices. But the academic and judicial consensus disappears when the theory at issue predicts that a practice—a merger or a predatory pricing campaign, for example—will harm consumers in the future through some complex sequence of events.

In our view, the desire to protect innovation is legitimate, but its specific applications …

Patenting Industry Standards, 34 J. Marshall L. Rev. 897 (2001), Janice M. Mueller

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Antitrust And Intellectual Property: Unresolved Issues At The Heart Of The New Economy, Robert Pitofsky

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The New Economy differs in degree rather than kind from the "old" economy. Part II of this discussion examines the key differences that define the New Economy. Part Ill turns to several implications of those differences as they pertain to antitrust enforcement. I argue that the differences do not justify sweeping generalizations that antitrust enforcement has no place in the New Economy, but do require antitrust enforcement to make adjustments and exercise sensitivity towards intellectual property issues on a case-by-case basis. The goal of a coherent overall competition policy, in deciding both what conduct to enforce against and what remedies …

Challenges Of The New Economy: Issues At The Intersection Of Antitrust And Intellectual Property, Robert Pitofsky

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

There is wide agreement that the last decade or so has presented an unusually lively and challenging period for antitrust analysis. Among many reasons we can point to are deregulation and problems of transition to a free market (telecommunications and electricity production offer leading examples), developments in procedural cooperation and possible substantive convergence in response to the increasing globalization of competition and enforcement approaches, and priorities in addressing an unprecedented merger wave. An additional challenge involves the application of established antitrust principles to the growing high-tech sector of the economy. It is that application of antitrust law to the new …

Allchin’S Folly: Exploring Some Myths About Open Source Software, Joe Miller

Scholarly Works

The twists and turns in the government’s antitrust case against Microsoft – from the D.C. Circuit’s stormy questioning at the two day oral argument in late February 2001 to its affirmance of the lion’s share of the government’s case in June 2001, and then from the settlement between the United States and Microsoft to the continuing battle by nine states for tougher sanctions – have garnered their share of press attention. But the high-profile antitrust case has not been the only Microsoft-centered controversy during the past year. Another involves the open source software movement about which Microsoft has professed grave …

After Microsoft Wins, Robert H. Lande

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Copyright Misuse And Modified Copyleft: New Solutions To The Challenges Of Internet Standardization, Chip Patterson

Michigan Law Review

The Internet is a truly global community within which myriad economic, social and technological forces interplay to cause its standardization. Much of the competition in the industry has revolved around which product will become the standard for a given market sector. Some markets have seen victors; for example, TCP/IP is the Internet communication protocol, MP3 appears to be dominating music compression, and Microsoft Corporation's Windows ("Windows") is clearly the standard operating system. Similarly, the Internet must adopt a standard for web browsing and searching, for email, and for web programming. In many cases, the competition for this standard will be …

Copyright And Antitrust: The Effects Of The Digital Performance Rights In Sound Recordings Act Of 1995 In Foreign Markets, Connie C. Davis

Federal Communications Law Journal

The licensing of copyrighted nondramatic works by performance rights societies has long been recognized as a potential source of antitrust violations. In 1995, the Congress passed the Digital Performance Rights in Sound Recordings Act in an effort to deal with the licensing problems associated with nondramatic musical works. The DPRSRA created a right in sound recordings to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission as well as establishing compulsory licensing scheme. However, the DPRSRA failed to address the problem of licensing of nondramatic works in foreign markets. This Note identifies the anticompetitive licensing scheme practiced …

Is The Use Of The Doctrine Of Equivalents To Fix Mistakes A Mistake?, Martin Adelman

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Copyright, Licensing, And The First Screen , Ronald A. Cass

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

As patent, copyright, and other intellectual property rights have assumed greater economic importance, the manner in which those rights are used has come under increased scrutiny. Recently filed antitrust litigation against Microsoft Corporation, for example, focuses on the terms under which Microsoft has licensed its Windows® operating system to computer manufacturers (generally referenced as OEMs, for Original Equipment Manufacturers). In particular, parties to the litigation complain about the license agreements' requirement that the first screen to appear when customers initially turn on ("boot up") a computer display certain features common across all Windows-based platforms. The "first screen provision" has been …