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…
Many opponents of Google’s business practices have trotted out the United States v. Microsoft decision and declared with beguiling simplicity that Google is the next Microsoft. They have suggested that the government’s case against Microsoft ten years ago provides a roadmap for a similar enforcement action against Google. To them, all you have to do…
Some U.S. Supreme Court watchers may have been disappointed that the Court on the last day of the October 2011 term–according to the Court’s calendar–did not decide the fate of President Obama’s health care overhaul legislation. That decision is most likely to come within the next three days, before the Court wraps up for the…
When competitors form a truce, consumers need to worry because often they find ways to make consumers pay more by cutting off competition. Nowhere is that a more big-ticket concern than an alliance between Nokia and Microsoft, waging a potential patent war on their smart phone rivals and potentially costing consumers millions of dollars in…
