Antitrust

Google's Antitrust "Charm Offensive" and Consumer Watchdog.Org's Response

June 9, 2009

Surely, Google doesn’t want to go through what so many dominant companies in the U.S. have had to suffer – government antitrust scrutiny, in the form of merger/joint venture challenges and even, God forbid, a Microsoft-like monopolization suit.  For better or worse, intensive antitrust scrutiny is the price of success in the U.S., and while it can’t be avoided altogether, perhaps it can be minimized.  Or so Google hopes. To that end, Google has made available a webinar entitled “Google, Competition and Openness.” Consumerwatchdog.org is not buying it, and their “anonymous mark-up” of the document (giving it a grade of “F”), is embedded from Scribd.com, below. Anonymous Analysis of Google Charm Offensive

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Antitrust, Followed by Anti-Anitrust Followed by ….

May 19, 2009

All of the news articles I’m seeing about how aggressive the newly appointed antitrust enforcers may be puts me in a mind to reminisce. When I graduated law school in 1979 I went off to what was then called Howrey & Simon, at that time the self-proclaimed antitrust heavyweight of D.C., and maybe the entire country. We certainly believed this to be true, and maybe it was. Back then there was no American Lawyer, and no one was really keeping score. At Howrey it was all antitrust all the time. The firm was involved in massive trials in distant locations – a four month trial in Houston, requiring the rental of suites of condos and an entourage that would challenge a U.S. President and staffed like the U.S. army — was not uncommon; in fact, cases like that were taken for granted. And, according my “law of antitrust litigation” (which is: all antitrust cases must be tried twice, < appeal, > appeal), some of these trials were “seconds. ” The funny thing is, no one seemed to give this state of affairs a second thought -it was just assumed that this was the normal course of events, and as long as Jimmy Carter was in the White House, all was well for antitrust lawyers. This changed as quickly as the April weather in New England when Ronald Reagan took office…

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Whither Antitrust?

April 6, 2009

A new administration often means a new approach to federal agency enforcement of the antitrust laws.  And, a shift from Republican to Democrat often means more aggressive enforcement by the DOJ and FTC.  The business and legal communities want to know, what can we expect? James W. Lowe and Thomas Mueller of Wilmer Hale attempt to answer some of these questions in their article Whither US Antitrust?, published in the March 2009 issue of the Global Competition Review.

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A Blog Symposium, Hosted by Truth on the Market

April 1, 2009

Take a book: Innovation for the 21st Century, Harnessing the Power of Intellectual Property and Antitrust Law, by Michael A. Carrier.  Invite several IP and antitrust luminaries to comment on the book.  The result: a  “Blog Symposium” on the book organized by Truth on the Market.  The Symposium is described as follows: The format will be as follows.Today we’ll have posts from Crane, Manne, Weiser, and Wright on aspects of Innovation for the 21st Century which focus on competition policy.Tomorrow, Professors Frischmann, Kieff, and Crouch will focus on the intellectual property related proposals.Professor Carrier will have the opportunity to respond to the posts Tuesday evening or Wednesday.And of course, we hope that both participants and our normal group of high quality commentators will find some time to mix it up in the comments.The participants have been given broad leeway to discuss general themes in Carrier’s work or hone in on specific policy proposals. With the formalities out of the way, you can expect the first of Monday’s posts to start in the early morning and then we’ll add throughout the day with posts from Crane, Manne, and Wright. The bloggers, with links to their bios are:  Dan Crane (University of Chicago/ Cardozo), Geoff Manne (TOTM/LECG), Phil Weiser (Colorado), Dennis Crouch (Patently-O/Missouri), Brett Frischmann (Cornell/ Loyola), F. Scott Kieff (Wash U./ Hoover/ and on his way to GW), the author and…

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Free The Market! by Gary Reback

March 19, 2009

Gary Reback, famed antitrust/IP lawyer and long-time thorn in the side of Microsoft, has written a book entitled “Free The Market!”.  The book will be released in mid-April and is available on preorder at Amazon now. Based on a few excerpts on Reback’s web site it looks like this will be an anecdotal, “in-the-trenches” book (as opposed to theoretical/academic) that should be well worth reading for those interested in the antitrust/IP wars of the last two decades. Reback was truly in the center of most of the big cases during these years, and I hope his book captures the legal issues, strategies and behind-the-scenes events that he witnessed.

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Rambus Files Its Opposition to Cert.; Gatehouse/New York Times Copyright Case Settles

January 28, 2009

[Update: the FTC did file a reply brief.  Link here] All the briefs are in on the FTC petition for cert in its antitrust case against Rambus, (unless the FTC decides to file a reply brief, which is unlikely to change things much). I’ve added the Rambus opposition to the Rambus Group page on scribd.com, here. Now its time for the antitrust community to hold its breath and see whether the Court takes the case. Some knowledgeable commentators have opined that FTC/Rambus case has the best chance of any antitrust case obtaining review this year, but that plus a dime will get you …. well, nothing I guess. If the petition is allowed, it will be very exciting times for antitrust and standards setting law and policy wonks. In federal court in Boston the Gatehouse Media v. New York Times case (described in these two (1, 2) earlier posts) has settled, as I suspected it would. The settlement agreement (or a preliminary agreement which is binding in the event a “definitive agreement” is not reached), is on scribd.com, here. It appears that this agreement was not intended to be made public (at least not yet), but apparently someone leaked it, so it’s public now. As I read this, Gatehouse prevailed, hands down over the NYT/Boston.com. Gatehouse will erect “technical solutions” to prevent Boston.com from copying the Gatehouse original content, and…

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Ninth Circuit: Refusal to Allow Embedded Videos and Links in MySpace Not a Sherman Act Violation

January 19, 2009

You would think that in a capitalist economy the right of one business to to say to another “I don’t want to deal with you” would be close to sacrosanct.  And, you would be right, with qualified exceptions in cases where the party refusing to deal has monopoly power.  Even then, the Supreme Court has narrowed the “duty to deal” to  fact situations so limited that antitrust liability can be avoided with careful planning. The two leading Supreme Court cases in this area of the law are Aspen Skiing Co. v. Aspen Highlands Skiing Corp., 472 U. S. 585, 601 (1985) and Verizon Communications Inc. v. Law Offices of Curtis V. Trinko, LLP, 540 U.S. 398 (2004).  Post-Trinko, the consensus of the courts is that “refusal to deal” claims are viable only where there was no voluntary prior course of dealing between the parties, where the monopolist’s  conduct increased its short term profits, or where the refusal to deal is used to monopolize an adjacent market. “Refusal to deal” cases involving Internet companies have been rare, but in a recent decision the 9th Circuit held that exclusionary conduct by MySpace.com, directed at another social networking site, Vidilife.com, did not constitute monopolization under the federal antitrust laws. Both MySpace.com and Vidilife.com are “social networking” websites.  MySpace is very well known, Vidilife site much less so. Vidilife.com, owned by LiveUniverse, Inc., allows…

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Additional Amici Briefs Added to Rambus Group Page in FTC v. Rambus

December 30, 2008

The amici briefs of “Twenty Scholars,” Hynix, Micron and Nvidia, the CCIA and the American Antitrust Institute have been added to the Rambus group page on scribd.com. Click here for a recent post discussing this appeal.

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Amici Briefs Supporting Supreme Court Review in FTC v. Rambus

December 25, 2008

When old engineers (and old lawyers) sit around decades from now reminiscing about patent and antitrust law in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the name of Rambus is sure to come up.  The topic will not be the Rambus DRAM (or RDRAM) chip technologies, but rather the massive volume of litigation that Rambus set off as result of its alleged “patent hold-up” actions and its patent enforcement efforts. Rambus, the lawyers on either side of its many cases, the courts, antitrust experts and economists, and of course investors in Rambus’ stock (a particularly loyal and attentive group), have debated the pros and cons and nuances of these lawsuits for years, and during this season (late 2008) an important and timely Rambus case is taking a run at the Supreme Court. The FTC adminstrative action against Rambus, which bothAndy Updegrove and Ihave written about at length in the past, involves somewhat arcane issues of single-firm conduct under Section 2 of the Sherman Act. However, the case also exists at a level that doesn’t require a degree in law and economics to understand – Rambus is accused of of withholding from an important standards-setting organization (SSO)  the fact that it had pending patent applications, resulting in adoption of the Rambus technology as a standard, following which Rambus used it patents to “hold up” the industry for unreasonable royalties. What a wonderful…

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"Excuse Me, What Isle is the Chutzpah In?"

December 11, 2008

Whole Foods, in the wake of the D.C. Circuit’s decision reinstating (in a manner of speaking) the FTC’s challenge to the Whole Foods – Wild Oats merger, has filed a most unusual lawsuit in the federal district court in the District of Columbia. Whole Foods is seeking to terminate the FTC’s administrative proceedings investigating the merger. The stated grounds are violation of the Due Process Clause and the Administrative Procedure Act (the APA). Here is a link to the complaint (scribd.com). This lawsuit is unusual, to say the least. The essence of Whole Foods complaint seems to be that the FTC has prejudged the case and set an unreasonably aggressive discovery schedule. I’m not aware of any grounds for this legal theory at this stage of an administrative proceeding, but I’m sure that Whole Foods’ lawyers have done their homework, and that these claims have some legal merit. Stay tuned.

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The FTC and DOJ – "So Sorry, but When it Comes to Sherman Action Section 2 Conduct, We Can't Agree on What the Law Is, or What it Should Be"

November 4, 2008

The Federal government has two antitrust enforcement authorities – the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. These two agencies have partially overlapping enforcement authority over civil cases, and they often collaborate in setting antitrust policy. Although the federal courts are the final arbiters of the federal antitrust laws (which are statutory, and therefore originate with Congress), the business community relies heavily on the Justice Department and the FTC to provide their views on the law. Accordingly, from time-to-time the Justice Department and FTC issue detailed joint guidelines. (Examples include: Collaborations Among Competitors, 2000; Antitrust and IP Rights, 2007; and Antitrust Licensing Guidelines, 1995). The DOJ/FTC joint reports are a big deal – they often include lengthy hearings, prepared testimony and position papers from interested parties, proposed guidelines, revised guidelines, and so on, until (drum role ….) the big day when the final report is issued. And, as a result, these reports are given great weight by the antitrust community – and by that I mean the vast army of antitrust lawyers and economists who endeavor to understand this stuff, harmonize it with court decisions (where possible), and advise their clients on how to behave. So, it’s no understatement to say that it is an unwelcome surprise when the federal antitrust enforcement agencies can’t agree on the law. Yet, this is what occurred when the…

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Google Makes the Case for its Advertising Deal With Yahoo

October 18, 2008

Here’s an interesting web page from Google entitled Facts About the Yahoo-Google Advertising Agreement. There, Google “makes the case” for its proposed deal with Yahoo, which it describes as follows: On June 12, 2008, Yahoo! and Google announced an agreement that gives Yahoo! the ability to use Google’s search and contextual advertising technology through its AdSense™ for Search and AdSense for Content advertising programs. Under the agreement, Yahoo! has the option to display Google ads alongside its own natural search results in the U.S. and Canada. In addition, Yahoo! can serve contextually targeted ads on its U.S. and Canadian web properties as well as on its current publisher partner sites. Yahoo! will continue to operate its own search engine, web properties and advertising services. In addition, Yahoo! and Google agreed to enable interoperability between their respective instant messaging services bringing easier and broader communication to users. On this web page Google presents a White Paper of sorts, in web format, with links to sections such as “what the deal means for advertisers” and “why the deal is good for competition.” It’s somewhat unusual for a company under Federal antitrust scrutiny to make a public “pitch” like this, but it’s consistent with Google’s corporate personality, which tends to be more “outward facing” than more conventional corporations. Here’s the Powerpoint embedded on the Google page:

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