Nothing Runs Like a Deere You Can Repair
Farmers have won the right to repair—at least, if they own John Deere equipment. In July, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced a settlement requiring Deere to give farmers and independent repair shops access to the software, manuals, and other resources needed to fix its products. The settlement sensibly balances consumers’ immediate interest in affordable repairs against the long-term need to protect innovators’ intellectual property.
Deere had previously reserved many of those resources for its licensed repair shops. Such control—especially over onboard software—is common in industries ranging from vehicles and medical devices to consumer electronics.
Critics contend that these restrictions allow manufacturers to “monopolize” repair aftermarkets. That concern has fueled right-to-repair campaigns and legislation across the country. In the early 2020s, the FTC promoted the right to repair as an anti-concentration policy that could spur competition. Advocates have also framed it as a matter of property rights: A farmer who buys a tractor owns it and should generally be free to repair it.
But the right to repair also implicates intellectual property. As one scholar argues, “While copyright and IP law protect firms to some degree, the broad extent of most proposed [right-to-repair] legislation across the states and federal government constitutes a threat to this protection.”
That concern deserves attention. One need not resolve the broader tension between intellectual property and economic competition to examine the more fundamental legal tension between intellectual property and property rights.