Author: Christina Bohannan Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
Unilateral refusals to license intellectual property rights are almost never antitrust violations, as is true of most unilateral refusals to deal. Concerted refusals to deal are treated more harshly under the antitrust laws because they can facilitate collusion or, in the case of technology, keep superior products or processes off the market. In its en banc Princo decision a divided Federal Circuit debated whether Congress had protected concerted refusals to license from claims of patent misuse. The majority rejected the dissent's argument that Congress had no such intent and then went on to hold that an alleged concerted refusal to license was not misuse. This conclusion is troublesome because in its Independent Ink decision the Supreme Court virtually equated the scope of antitrust liability with the scope of misuse as defined by §271(d). Broad legality for concerted refusals to license patents, and unused patents in particular, has serious implications for competition and innovation. A concerted refusal to license a factory or other productive asset can facilitate collusion by denying resources to rivals unless they can find alternative sources of supply. A concerted refusal to license an unused patent can go much further. Not only does it deny rivals that particular technology but it also prevents them from developing any technology independently that would infringe one or more of that patent's claims. Of course, not every concerted refusal to license should be unlawful per se. In antitrust, they are appropriately covered by the ancillary restraints doctrine. Naked agreements not to license are unlawful per se, while refusals reasonably necessary to further joint research or production would be unlawful only if market power and anticompetitive effects were proven. By contrast, reading §271(d) of the Patent Act to authorize all concerted refusals is likely to harm both competition and the incentive to innovate.
Author: François Lévêque Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing ISBN: 9781781008041 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 262
Book Description
In modern markets innovation is at least as great a concern as price competition. The book discusses how antitrust policy and patent and copyright laws interact to create market dynamics that affect both competition and innovation. Antitrust and intellectual property policies for the most part are complementary, sharing common goals of promoting innovation and economic welfare. In some cases, however, their distinct approaches, one based on competition and the other on exclusion, come into conflict. As antitrust authorities focus increasingly on ensuring that firms do not interfere with innovation by rivals or impede the pace of technological progress in an industry, they necessarily must confront difficult questions about the strength and scope of intellectual property rights. When should private property rights give way to public competition objectives? When is it appropriate to remedy anticompetitive outcomes through access to protected intellectual property? How does antitrust enforcement or competition itself affect incentives to innovate? Leading economists and lawyers address these questions from both US and EU perspectives in discussing salient antitrust cases involving intellectual property rights such as Microsoft, Magill, Kodak, IMS and Intel.
Author: Jeffrey K. MacKie-Mason Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 9
Book Description
The Federal Circuit's decision in CSU v. Xerox1 has generated enormous controversy. However, there seems to be emerging agreement among both critics and supporters of the decision on a correct, narrow reading of the decision. Whatever else the decision stands for, it appears to declare antitrust immunity for unilateral refusals to sell or license patented or copyrighted intellectual property (IP). What was at stake in Xerox is whether a firm with a legitimate property right in the design of certain parts has the right to condition sale of those parts with terms that enable Xerox to obtain a monopoly in a different market, for service labor. More broadly, what is at stake is a safe harbor for conduct that previously has been found illegal. For, although much emphasis is placed on whether this was a unilateral refusal to deal (as opposed to a concerted agreement, which would not be exempt from Section 1 scrutiny), it is at least as important that this was a conditional refusal. As I show below, the meaningful distinction between this conditional refusal to deal and a conventional illegal tie is nil. Further, if an antitrust exemption is given to all conditional unilateral refusals to deal, this formalistic shield will be easily available in the future to firms that would otherwise be subject to antitrust liability for tying or other concerted agreements.
Author: Ian Eagles Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN: 1847318509 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 298
Book Description
Economic analysis rarely appears on the judicial horizon in intellectual property litigation. In competition cases, by contrast, economists are familiar figures in the courtroom and the language of economics is scattered throughout the judgments of even the highest courts. One might expect, therefore, that refusals to license intellectual property would generate the same fruitful symbiosis between law and economics when those refusals surface in competition proceedings. This however, has not been how the law on this subject has developed in most jurisdictions. Courts and enforcement agencies faced with a unilateral refusal to license have instead tended to retreat into sketchily articulated black letter rules and presumptions which then have to be fenced off from the rest of competition law by economically irrelevant qualifications and distinctions based on private law categorisations of, and rationales for, individual intellectual property rights. This bypassing of case-by-case analysis in favour of more traditional modes of legal reasoning is not entirely the fault of lawyers. Economists have contributed to this state of affairs by urging judges and regulators to convert empirically undernourished theories about the proper role of intellectual property in a market economy into rules of law and evidentiary presumptions intended to be binding in future cases. How this came about and what it means for the future of effective competition enforcement globally are the twin concerns of this book.
Author: François Lévêque (prawo) Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing ISBN: Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 264
Book Description
Having been drawn into a fantasy world of his own creation, Rod Everlar continues his quest to defeat the corruption he has discovered within. He sets off in pursuit of the dark wizard Malraun, only to find that he has raised an army of monsters and mercenaries in order to conquer the world... “Best known as the creator of Forgotten Realms, the Dungeons & Dragons®-based heroic fantasy series, Greenwood continues to give his audience exactly what they want.” — Publishers Weekly “The richly detailed world of Falconfar might just convince you that Ed Greenwood, like the Dark Lord hero of this tale, does not create fantasy realms: he discovers them.” — Elaine Cunningham, New York Times best-selling author.
Author: Kelvin Hiu Fai Kwok Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 30
Book Description
This article proposes a new approach to resolving the conundrum of a monopolist refusing to license intellectual property rights to a competitor, one of the most complex issues at the interface between intellectual property and competition law. It reviews the approaches adopted by the competition authorities in both the European Union and United States when confronted with this perplexing issue, and argues that the extreme positions they took - either that competition should trump intellectual property rights (IPRs) or that IPRs should trump competition - were mistakenly simplistic. The article proceeds to argue that the preferred approach is to strike an appropriate balance between anticompetitive effects and procompetitive effects of a refusal to license, and accordingly allocative efficiency losses and dynamic efficiency gains. A substantial part of this article is devoted to a proposed framework illustrating how the balance can be struck, emphasizing how the refusal at issue interacts with various circumstantial factors such as market power, network effects, monopoly leveraging, predatory intent, degree of follow-on innovation, and the causal connection between IPR protection and innovation incentives. Reference will be made to precedents from the European Union (Magill, IMS, and Microsoft) and United States (Kodak and Xerox) in explaining how the framework works in practice.
Author: Valentine Korah Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN: 184731077X Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 360
Book Description
This latest monograph by Professor Korah on the recent group exemption consists of a detailed and critical commentary on the technology transfer block exemption and guidelines of 2004, and of the case law of the ECJ and Commission on licensing and refusals to license, together with annotated copies of the regulation and guidelines. There is a substantial chapter on refusal to supply or license in the light of the recent case law under Article 82. It embraces many of the competition issues that may affect intellectual property rights. After a brief introduction, the work starts with short chapters on the free movement of goods and services, the status of the Commission's guidelines and the historically hostile attitude of the Commission under Article 81 towards licensing. It then launches into a detailed analysis of the regulation and the probable treatment of licences that do not fall within it. Throughout the book the author provides extensive analysis of policy and economics as well as comparison with US practice.
Author: Ian Eagles Publisher: Hart Publishing ISBN: 9781841138732 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 298
Book Description
Economic analysis rarely appears on the judicial horizon in intellectual property litigation. In competition cases, by contrast, economists are familiar figures in the courtroom and the language of economics is scattered throughout the judgments of even the highest courts. One might expect, therefore, that refusals to license intellectual property would generate the same fruitful symbiosis between law and economics when those refusals surface in competition proceedings. This however, has not been how the law on this subject has developed in most jurisdictions. Courts and enforcement agencies faced with a unilateral refusal to license have instead tended to retreat into sketchily articulated black letter rules and presumptions which then have to be fenced off from the rest of competition law by economically irrelevant qualifications and distinctions based on private law categorisations of, and rationales for, individual intellectual property rights. This bypassing of case-by-case analysis in favour of more traditional modes of legal reasoning is not entirely the fault of lawyers. Economists have contributed to this state of affairs by urging judges and regulators to convert empirically undernourished theories about the proper role of intellectual property in a market economy into rules of law and evidentiary presumptions intended to be binding in future cases. How this came about and what it means for the future of effective competition enforcement globally are the twin concerns of this book.
Author: Christopher R. Leslie Publisher: ISBN: 0195337190 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 702
Book Description
In Antitrust Law and Intellectual Property Rights: Cases and Materials, Christopher R. Leslie describes how patents, copyrights, and trademarks confer exclusionary rights on their owners, and how firms sometimes exercise this exclusionary power in ways that exceed the legitimate bounds of their intellectual property rights. Leslie explains that while substantive intellectual property law defines the scope of the exclusionary rights, antitrust law often provides the most important consequences when owners of intellectual property misuse their rights in a way that harms consumers or illegitimately excludes competitors. Antitrust law defines the limits of what intellectual property owners can do with their IP rights. In this book, Leslie explores what conduct firms can and cannot engage in while acquiring and exploiting their intellectual property rights, and surveys those aspects of antitrust law that are necessary for both antitrust practitioners and intellectual property attorneys to understand. This book is ideal for an advanced antitrust course in a JD program. In addition to building on basic antitrust concepts, it fills in a gap that is often missing in basic antitrust courses yet critical for an intellectual property lawyer: the intersection of intellectual property and antitrust law. The relationship between intellectual property and antitrust is particularly valuable as an increasing number of law schools offer specializations and LLMs in intellectual property. This book also provides meaningful material for both undergraduate and graduate business schools programs because it explains how antitrust law limits the marshalling of intellectual property rights.
Author: Christina Bohannan
Author: François Lévêque
Author: Jeffrey K. MacKie-Mason
Author: Ian Eagles
Author: François Lévêque (prawo)
Author: Kelvin Hiu Fai Kwok
Author: Valentine Korah
Author: Hovenkamp, Janis, Lemley, Leslie, Carrier
Author: Ian Eagles
Author: Christopher R. Leslie