Antitrust and Trade Regulation Commons^™

Taking The Error Out Of 'Error Cost' Analysis: What's Wrong With Antitrust's Right, Jonathan Baker

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This article catalogues a series of erroneous assumptions about the current competition policy environment made by today’s antitrust conservatives. These errors inappropriately tilt the application of a neutral economic tool, decision theory, toward non-interventionist outcomes.

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

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

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 …

How Not To Apply The Rule Of Reason: The O’Bannon Case, Michael A. Carrier

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

The case of O’Bannon v. NCAA has received significant attention. On behalf of a class of student-athletes, former college basketball star Ed O’Bannon sued the NCAA, challenging rules that prohibited payment for the use of names, images, and likenesses (NILs) in videogames, live game telecasts, and other footage. A Ninth Circuit panel, in a 2-1 decision, found that this restraint had anticompetitive effects and procompetitive justifications. And it considered “less restrictive alternatives,” upholding payment for incidental educational expenses beyond tuition and fees, room and board, and required books, but rejecting a deferred $5,000 payment for NILs. Straddling the intersection of …

Patent Punting: How Fda And Antitrust Courts Undermine The Hatch-Waxman Act To Avoid Dealing With Patents, Rebecca S. Eisenberg, Daniel A. Crane

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Under the Hatch-Waxman Act, patent law and FDA regulation work together to determine the timing of generic entry in the market for drugs. But FDA has sought to avoid any responsibility for reading patents, insisting that its role in administering the patent provisions of the Hatch-Waxman Act is purely ministerial. This gap in regulatory oversight has allowed innovators to use irrelevant patents to defer generic competition. Meanwhile, patent litigation has set the stage for anticompetitive settlements rather than adjudication of the patent issues in the courts. As these settlements have provoked antitrust litigation, antitrust courts have proven no more willing …

Judges Are Not ‘Super-Referees’: Why A Qualified Statutory Exemption To The Sherman Act Is Needed To Reform The Ncaa And Its Exploitive Amateur Model, 49 J. Marshall L. Rev. 125 (2015), Christopher Sweeney

UIC Law Review

This Comment will analyze the historical application of antitrust laws to the rules and regulations of the NCAA and argue that, in light of a recent shift in judicial treatment, the next round of antitrust litigation threatens to destroy the entire NCAA model.

Myriad Lessons Learned, Amelia Rinehart

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Maybe the most important lesson that can be learned from cases like Myriad (ones in which the legal problems are complex) is a subtle one: the big picture is complicated. After all, if every case were easy to resolve on the merits, all lawyers and judges would be out of jobs quickly. Technology is complex, also. This results in a tendency (maybe even a compulsion) among patent attorneys and courts deciding patent cases to analogize to other areas of the law, to shoehorn fact into narrow doctrines, or otherwise to do things that reduce the case and the technology at …

Competitive Orders, The Final Monopoly, And The Second Most Important Invention In History, Steven Ferrey

Kentucky Journal of Equine, Agriculture, & Natural Resources Law

No abstract provided.

The Aged Distilled Spirits Competitiveness Act: Increasing Kentucky's Economic Output While Leveling The Playing Field For Kentucky Distilleries, Drake Staples

Kentucky Journal of Equine, Agriculture, & Natural Resources Law

No abstract provided.

Prawne I Ekonomiczne Aspekty Polityki Promowania Narodowych Czempionów, Rajmund Molski

Monografie CARS/CARS Monographs

Polityka promowania przez państwo tzw. narodowych czempionów budzi kontrowersje, co prowokuje ożywioną debatę w kwestii zasadności tej polityki. W debacie tej wciąż pada więcej pytań niż odpowiedzi. Kluczowy problem sprowadza się do odpowiedzi na pytanie, czy przedsiębiorstwa te powinny powstawać samoistnie, czy raczej aktywną rolę w procesie ich tworzenia i wzrostu powinny odgrywać władze państwowe, i na czym ewentualnie to wsparcie miałoby polegać? Odpowiedzi wymaga też pytanie o rzeczywisty wymiar polityki promowania narodowych czempionów realizowanej w praktyce przez różne państwa, a także o jej zgodność z szeroko rozumianym prawem i polityką ochrony konkurencji. Jakkolwiek pytania te zyskały szczególną doniosłość w …

Koncepcja Jednego Organizmu Gospodarczego W Prawie Ochrony Konkurencji, Piotr Semeniuk

Monografie CARS/CARS Monographs

W książce przeanalizowane zostało zastosowanie koncepcji jednego organizmu gospodarczego (ang. single economic unit) w prawie ochrony konkurencji. Podstawowym porządkiem prawnym analizowanym przez autora jest polskie oraz unijne prawo ochrony konkurencji (prawo antymonopolowe, antytrustowe). Z powodu wysoce ogólnikowego odwołania się do koncepcji jednego organizmu gospodarczego przez przepisy regulacji antymonopolowej, zarówno polskiej, jak i unijnej, w pracy przedstawione są też rozwiązania przyjęte przez inne porządki prawne, przede wszystkim prawo Stanów Zjednoczonych.

Autor bada różne uzasadnienia dla istnienia w prawie ochrony konkurencji koncepcji jednego organizmu gospodarczego, konfrontuje tą koncepcję z naukami ekonomicznymi (w szczególności z tzw. teorią firmy) oraz dokonuje przeglądu podstawowych poglądów …

New Weaknesses: Despite A Major Win, Arbitration Decisions In 2014 Increase The Us’S Future Exposure To Litigation And Liability, Lise Johnson

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

In 2014, the US continued its overall record of success in defending investment treaty claims. But it did suffer losses on a number of important issues, and those losses will render the US (and its treaty parties) vulnerable to future claims, litigation expense, and liability. The US’s recent losses, which have thus far been largely ignored in commentary on the US’s experiences in investment arbitration, are highlighted in this briefing note.

O’Bannon V. National Collegiate Athletic Association: Why The Ninth Circuit Should Not Block The Floodgates Of Change In College Athletics, Christopher Sagers, Michael A. Carrier

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In O’Bannon v. National Collegiate Athletic Ass’n, then-Chief Judge Claudia Wilken of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued a groundbreaking decision, potentially opening the floodgates for challenges to National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) amateurism rules. The NCAA was finally put to a full evidentiary demonstration of its amateurism defense, and its proof was found emphatically wanting. We agree with Professor Edelman that O’Bannon could bring about significant changes, but only if the Ninth Circuit affirms. We write mainly to address the NCAA’s vigorous pending appeal and the views of certain amici, and to explain our …

Merging Innovation Into Antitrust Agency Enforcement Of The Clayton Act, Hillary Greene

Faculty Articles and Papers

The treatment of innovation within the merger context by U.S. Antitrust Agencies continues to evolve, with regard to both general statements of enforcement policy and specific enforcement decisions. The respective merger guidelines issued by the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission did not consider potential impacts on innovation or research and development until 1982, and then only in passing. By contrast, their joint 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines devote an entire section to innovation issues. This Essay examines both the frequency and manner with which the Antitrust Agencies invoke innovation-based concerns within their respective merger challenges from 2004-2014. It …

Judicial Treatment Of The Antitrust Treatise, Hillary Greene, D. Daniel Sokol

Faculty Articles and Papers

Herbert Hovenkamp has had a tremendous impact in antitrust scholarship. With over 4000 citations in the WestlawJLR database (most of which are for his antitrust scholarship), Hovenkamp is one of the most cited scholars in legal academia and has been recognized by the legal academy and the bar for his contribution to antitrust.' Hovenkamp's total citations are in part a function of his academic outputs; with 12 books (including monographs, edited books, and case books), plus the two-volume treatise on IP and Antitrust and the 2 i-volume Antitrust Law: An Analysis of Antitrust Principles and Their Application ("Treatise"), Hovenkamp could …

Muzzling Antitrust: Information Products, Innovation And Free Speech, Hillary Greene

Faculty Articles and Papers

How well does the American legal system balance the diverse values society espouses? Courts must often navigate values that are not consistent, commensurate, or subject to ordinal ranking. This article examines the confluence of incommensurate values within the important context of antitrust challenges to information product redesigns (e.g., Google, Nielsen). The information economy has given rise to the emergence of powerful firms in the business of information products. Some of these firms have had product redesigns challenged as anticompetitive. This article examines two defenses to these challenges. First, the products constitute protected speech and should be immunized entirely from antitrust …

Colluding Under The Radar: Achieving Collusion Through Vertical Exchange Of Information, Julia Shamir, Noam Shamir Recanati Graduate School Of Business, Tel Aviv University

Cleveland State Law Review

In the absence of antitrust regulations, rational profit-maximizing firms in an oligopoly may freely act in consort to reach a consensus and to maintain prices above the competitive level. However, in light of potential exposure to antitrust investigations and prospective heavy sanctions, firms attempt to achieve collusive outcomes without resorting to explicit agreements. One mechanism that may promote such tacit collusion is information-sharing; that is, the otherwise competing firms exchange their private information in order to set and maintain supra-competitive prices. Thus far, the attention of the antitrust authorities and scholars has focused on the phenomenon of horizontal information-sharing, i.e., …

Tensions Between Antitrust And Industrial Policy, D. Daniel Sokol

UF Law Faculty Publications

Sound antitrust law and policy is in tension with industrial policy. Antitrust promotes consumer welfare whereas industrial policy promotes government intervention for privileged groups or industries. Unfortunately, industrial policy seems to be alive and well both within antitrust law and policy and within a broader competition policy worldwide. This Article identifies how industrial policy impacts both antitrust and competition policy. It provides examples from the United States, Europe and China of how industrial policy has been used in antitrust. However, this Article also makes a broader claim that the overt or subtle use of industrial policy in antitrust and a …

A Rapid Reaction To O'Bannon: The Need For Analytics In Applying The Sherman Act To Overly Restrictive Joint Venture Schemes, Stephen F. Ross, Wayne Desarbo

Faculty Scholarship

This Article reviews the recent and highly publicized district court decision holding that NCAA rules, which bar student-athletes from any compensation for image rights, violated the Sherman Act, and that big-time athletic programs could lawfully agree among themselves to limit compensation to $5,000 annually in trust for each athlete upon leaving school. This Article briefly discusses why the decision correctly found the current rule to be illegal, but also details why, under settled antitrust law, the critical question of how much compensation would significantly harm consumer appeal for college football and basketball is a question better left to marketing science …

Is Music The Next Ebooks? An Antitrust Analysis Of Apple's Conduct In The Music Industry, Alexa Klebanow, Tim Wu

Faculty Scholarship

Over the last twenty years, two waves of technological change have transformed the way people purchase and listen to music. First, digital downloads displaced physical sales of albums. More recently, digital downloads, once the primary way to gain access to digital music, have come to be challenged by streaming services. Apple, a leader in the digital download market with iTunes, has engaged in various strategies to meet the challenge. This Note specifically focuses on two types of conduct: Apple’s pressure on labels to enter into exclusive license agreements, also known as windowing, and Apple’s pressure on the market to abandon …

Promoting Innovation, Matthew Sag, Spencer Weber Waller

Faculty Articles

This Essay proceeds as follows. We briefly introduce the concept of creative destruction and its place in Schumpeter’s work in Part II. In Part III we explain why a truly Schumpeterian competition policy demands more than a laissez faire approach. We explain why the law must preserve opportunities and incentives for creative destruction at all stages of innovation and we review four key policy areas of antitrust law from this innovation-focused perspective: unilateral conduct cases (Part III.A), cases at the intersection of IP and antitrust (Part III.B), Sherman Act section 1 cases (Part III.C), and merger policy (Part III.D). In …