Abstract

This Appendix contains excerpts from the U.S. code of statutes relating to competition outside of the Clayton and Sherman Acts.

Abstract

This Appendix contains descriptions of the antitrust laws of each state, with relevant statutory citations and some brief excerpts of more interesting provisions or provisions with unusual language. States that align the interpretation of their antitrust laws to federal law are marked with an asterisk.

Abstract

It is always an appropriate time to reevaluate, reexamine, and question the optimal scope and shape of our antitrust institutions. For example, the United States is peculiar in having two distinct antitrust enforcement agencies. More peculiar still, the agencies have both common and unique functions. For example, both the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) review mergers pursuant to Section 7 of the Clayton Act and enforce Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act through civil actions. At the same time, the Division alone is responsible for criminal enforcement of the Sherman Act, and the FTC alone enforces the Clayton Act provisions that prohibit tying and unfair methods of competition. Layered atop the peculiar dual jurisdiction of the FTC and DOJ at the federal level is a remarkably complex and decentralized system of competition enforcement authority distributed among myriad federal sectoral regulators, state attorneys general, and private litigants.

This article asks whether the current distribution of competition functions in the U.S. can be improved by some reorganization or other reform. We answer in the affirmative and propose several changes — perhaps the most significant being consolidating the competition functions of the FTC into the Antitrust Division. We also propose stripping the Federal Communications Commission of authority independently to review mergers, as the Congress did with regard to the Department of Transportation in view of its similarly poor performance reviewing airline mergers. Our more general proposals regarding the authority of sectoral regulators over competition should not be overlooked, however; it would do much good and has little or no downside.

Read at SSRN.

Abstract

Ronald Coase famously exposed the limitations of economic analyses that rely upon assumptions of frictionless markets. He highlighted the importance of including transaction costs in economic analyses and issued a challenge to economists to think seriously about how transaction costs impact economic systems. Harold Demsetz, extended Coase’s analysis to show how these costs alter the way firms price and market their products. Demsetz’ analysis underscored that the costs of providing a market sometimes exceed the benefits of creating one in the first place and examined conditions where transaction costs imply that zero amounts of explicit market pricing will be efficient.

This article focuses upon extending Demsetz’s insights concerning non-linear pricing contracts that seem not to “price” key side effects of the economic exchange. In particular, we analyze the welfare and output effects of two examples of such contracts commonly used by firms that are frequently subject to antitrust scrutiny: metered pricing and loyalty discounts. The analysis demonstrates how a firm’s choice to set prices for its products are influenced by transaction and information costs and examines whether changes in output caused by the use of these non-linear pricing schemes are positively correlated with changes in total and consumer welfare. The article then discusses conditions under which measuring output effects can reliably differentiate between welfare-increasing and welfare-reducing uses of non-linear pricing.

Abstract

The GAI filed this Comment with the Canadian Competition Bureau in response to the Bureau’s request for public feedback on draft Guidance on Wage-Fixing and No-Poaching Agreements. Such agreements will be subject to a new statute (subsection 45(1.1), Canadian Competition Act) taking effect June 23, 2023, prohibiting such agreements as per se offenses and making violations subject to criminal remedies. The GAI’s Comment commends the Bureau for seeking public comment prior to implementation and generally concurs with the basic approach taken by the Bureau. To further refine and improve the Bureau’s approach, the Comment identifies potential ambiguities in the Guidance. Ambiguity complicates compliance, since businesses are likely to avoid even procompetitive or competitively neutral conduct potentially exposed to challenge. Avoidance of lawful conduct by business firms due to uncertainty regarding applicable legal standards may inhibit competition and ultimately reduce economic performance and innovation. Per se condemnation and criminal remedies should be reserved for conduct always or almost always anticompetitive and lacking plausible procompetitive rationale. The GAI therefore asks the Bureau to take particular care in defining the types of agreements that may be subject to the new law. Principal areas of focus involve (1) transition provisions; (2) the scope of an exemption for agreements between “affiliates”; (3) the definition of what constitutes an “employment relationship,” a key term defining the scope of the new law; (4) the line between permissible information sharing and impermissible coordinated conduct, and (5) the proper interpretation of the “Ancillary Restraints Defense” that will be applicable.

The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) recently released Policy Statement on unfair methods of competition (UMC) has a number of profound problems, which I will detail below. But first, some praise: if the FTC does indeed plan to bring many lawsuits challenging conduct as a standalone UMC (I am dubious it will), then the public ought to have notice about the change. Providing such notice is good government, and the new Statement surely provides that notice. And providing notice in this way was costly to the FTC: the contents of the statement make surviving judicial review harder, not easier (I will explain my reasons for this view below). Incurring that cost to provide notice deserves some praise.

Read the full piece here.

ICLE Director of Law & Economics Programs Gus Hurwitz joined a panel at the Gray Center’s Oct. 14 conference, “The Administration of Antitrust: The FTC and the Rule of Law.” The panel also featured Ashley Baker of the Committee for Justice and Howard Shelanski of the Georgetown University Law Center, and was moderated by ICLE Nonresident Scholar Joshua Wright. Audio of the discussion, archived by the Gray Center’s Gray Matters podcast, is embedded below.

Abstract

This comment by 25 law professors, economists and former United States government officials was submitted to the European Union Commission in response to a “call for evidence” on the licensing, litigation, and remedies of standard-essential patents (SEPs). It details the principal concepts and substantial evidence relating to the constructive role of SEPs in efficiently promoting innovation and structuring commercialization activities in high-tech devices generally and the mobile revolution specifically. It also addresses widespread misunderstandings and misstatements about the commercialization and litigation of SEPs. It broadly makes three points.

First, in contrast to the evidence of the positive role of SEPs in promoting innovation and commercialization in wireless technologies, no published empirical study has found evidence of the predicted marketplace effects of “holdup” or “royalty stacking” theories, such as higher prices, less innovation, and less market competition in smartphones. Second, contrary to claims by some commentators that courts do not issue injunctions for the infringement of SEPs, the comment reviews some representative decisions from the substantial case law in Europe in which SEP owners have requested or obtained injunctions against implementers engaging in holdout tactics. Third, it explains how courts have consistently held that the fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) commitment by SEP owners does not mandate a “license to all” rule nor that reasonable royalties be calculated according to the “smallest salable, patent practicing unit” (SSPPU) standard. These court decisions are consistent with the economic function and evidence of SEP licensing on FRAND terms.

The mobile revolution has created unparalleled economic and technological growth over the past three decades. So long as courts provide robust enforcement of intellectual property rights, and do not impede the licensing and other contracts predicated on those rights, there is every reason to believe that the mobile market will continue to thrive. The comment concludes with an Appendix listing the substantial, published literature addressing both the success of the SEP-based sector of the global innovation economy and the numerous substantive and methodological flaws in “holdup” and “royalty stacking” theories.

Comments of Scholars of Law, Economics, and Business

Draft USPTO, NIST, & DOJ Policy Statement on Licensing Negotiations and Remedies for Standard-Essential Patents Subject to Voluntary F/RAND Commitments

Docket ATR-2021-0001

Submitted Feb. 4, 2022

We are scholars of law, economics, and business who work in areas related to intellectual property, antitrust, strategy, and innovation. We write to express our concerns with the December 6, 2021, U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division (DOJ) draft statement on remedies for the infringement of standard-essential patents (SEPs) (“Draft Policy Statement”).[1] This statement would effectively repudiate guidance published by these same agencies in 2019.[2]

While the Draft Policy Statement may seem even-handed at first sight, its implementation would have far-reaching consequences that would significantly tilt the balance of power in SEP-reliant industries, in favor of implementers and to the detriment of inventors. In turn, this imbalance is liable to harm consumers through reduced innovation, resulting from higher contract-enforcement costs and lower returns to groundbreaking innovations. And by making it harder for U.S. tech firms to enforce their intellectual property (IP) rights against foreign companies, the Draft Policy Statement threatens to erode America’s tech-sector leadership.

Read the full comments here.

[1] U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division, Draft Policy Statement on Licensing Negotiations and Remedies for Standard-Essential Patents Subject to Voluntary F/RAND Commitments (Dec. 6, 2021), available at https://www.justice.gov/atr/page/file/1453471/download [hereinafter “Draft Policy Statement”].

[2] U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division, Policy Statement on Licensing Remedies for Standard-Essential Patents Subject to Voluntary F/RAND Commitments (Dec. 19, 2019), available at https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/SEP%20policy%20statement%20signed.pdf.