Antitrust Suits No ‘Panacea’ for Failed Patent Talks: DOJ Official
DOJ’s Antitrust Division will bring enforcement actions when anticompetitive conduct by standard-essential patent holders or other players in the standards development process harms competition, Economics Director-Enforcement Jeffrey Wilder told a Global Competition Review summit Wednesday. But not every patent licensing…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
dispute “invites an antitrust challenge,” said Wilder. Though antitrust claims are no “panacea for failed bilateral negotiation,” antitrust should play a role “when the standards-setting process is used to thwart competition and harm consumers,” he said. He vowed the division will promote policies “that encourage good-faith licensing negotiation” and give “clearer guidance” on how “bad-faith conduct can hinder competition.” It will support standards-development organizations adopting intellectual property rights policies “that address licensing inefficiencies and enable the dissemination of standardized products,” he said: The division will try to be “transparent” about its enforcement priorities and policy changes.