Keep an eye out for the Court’s decision on certiorari in McCray v. Fidelity Nat’l Ins. Co., 682 F.3d 229 (3rd Cir. 2012). I have my fingers crossed that it may be the case in which the Court finally does the right thing with the accursed “filed rate doctrine.” I filed a brief in support…
One of the critical obstacles to our innovation economy are patent trolls or Patent Assertion Entities (“PAE”) which acquire patents simply to bring patent litigation and effectively tax innovation. PAEs exploit numerous problems in our legal system including the expense and uncertainty of patent litigation, the excessive granting of patents in the high-tech space, the…
The press is reporting that FairSearch and the other Google opponents have trotted down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Department of Justice Antitrust Division asking them to take over the antitrust investigation of search now that the Federal Trade Commission is poised to close its investigation. Although it’s Christmas time and we all like Christmas shopping,…
Online marketplace eBay, Inc. has been charged by the Department of Justice with entering into an agreement with business and financial management solutions provider Intuit, Inc. not to hire each other’s employees. On Friday, the Justice Department filed an 11-page civil antitrust complaint against eBay in the federal district court in San Jose, California. The…
The press is on fire with dozens of stories that the FTC appears poised to sue Google for alleged anticompetitive conduct in search (and the possibility that any case may be settled). There certainly is no lack of well-paid advocates for aggrieved rivals ready to spin claims that Google is the next Microsoft and that…
Over the last decade, the patent landscape has been dramatically altered by the rise of entities whose business model is to acquire significant patent portfolios and aggressively pursue license fees from businesses selling products that may infringe on some of those patents. Such companies are known as “non-practicing entities” (NPEs) or “patent assertion entities” (or,…
Some of the most high-profile competitive disputes involve both intellectual property (IP) and antitrust law. Prudent IP lawyers know the value of securing antitrust advice, especially when dealing with potential transactions or potential litigation. IP lawyers should seek out the advice of their antitrust colleagues in order to avoid antitrust pitfalls in the following 12…
During this past couple of years, my friend and colleague Barak Richman of the Duke law school has made a small cottage industry of pissing off organized Judaism. Himself newly the president of a synagogue in North Carolina, he turned his frustrating experience in hiring a new rabbi into a study of the antitrust treatment…
The Department of Justice will not challenge a proposed acquisition by Verizon Wireless of a significant portfolio of wireless spectrum licenses from a consortium of four cable companies and the subsequent transfer of a significant amount of that spectrum to T-Mobile USA; however, the parties will be required to modify separate marketing agreements to settle…
Reverse payments settlements between patent holders and would-be generic competitors in the pharmaceutical industry should be reviewed under a “quick look” rule of reason analysis based on the economic realities of the reverse payment settlement, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled today. The appellate court decided that wholesalers and retailers who purchased a…
