The Interplay Between Competition Law and Intellectual Property

The Interplay Between Competition Law and Intellectual Property
Author: Gabriella Muscolo
Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.
Total Pages: 633
Release: 2019-01-17
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9041186905

Although competition law and intellectual property are often interwoven, until this book there has been little guidance on how they work together in practice. As the intersection between the two fields continues to grow worldwide, both in case law and in regulation, the book's markets-based approach, focusing on sectors such as pharmaceuticals, IT, telecoms, energy and agriculture in eleven of the world's most active jurisdictions, provides a much-needed in-depth understanding of how this interplay reveals itself among the different legal systems. Written by a range of authors including judges, regulators, academics, economists and practitioners in both fields, the book provides an international comparative perspective as well as detailed analysis of specific cases, policies and proposals for change. Among the issues and topics covered are the following: – free movement of goods and the protection of intellectual property rights; – standard essential patents & injunction in patent cases; – intellectual property rights between technological development and consumer protection; – geo-blocking; – online platforms and antitrust; – excessive prices. In this context, special attention is paid throughout to the increasing dialogue among Competition Authorities and between Judges and Competition Authorities around the world. As matchless remedy for the lack of uniformity heretofore, the book's investigation of the nexus between competition law and intellectual property in different sectors and in various countries takes a giant step towards a more-balanced approach and more-levelled regulation and practices. It will be warmly appreciated by policy makers, decision makers, regulators, practitioners and academics in both competition law and intellectual property fields

EU Competition Law, Data Protection and Online Platforms: Data as Essential Facility

EU Competition Law, Data Protection and Online Platforms: Data as Essential Facility
Author: Inge Graef
Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2016-10-17
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9041183256

All are agreed that the digital economy contributes to a dynamic evolution of markets and competition. Nonetheless, concerns are increasingly raised about the market dominance of a few key players. Because these companies hold the power to drive rivals out of business, regulators have begun to seek scope for competition enforcement in cases where companies claim that withholding data is needed to satisfy customers and cut costs. This book is the first focus on how competition law enforcement tools can be applied to refusals of dominant firms to give access data on online platforms such as search engines, social networks, and e-commerce platforms – commonly referred to as the ‘gatekeepers’ of the Internet. The question arises whether the denial of a dominant firm to grant competitors access to its data could constitute a ‘refusal to deal’ and lead to competition law liability under the so-called ‘essential facilities doctrine', according to which firms need access to shared knowledge in order to be able to compete. A possible duty to share data with rivals also brings to the forefront the interaction of competition law with data protection legislation considering that the required information may include personal data of individuals. Building on the refusal to deal concept, and using a multidisciplinary approach, the analysis covers such issues and topics as the following: – data portability; – interoperability; – data as a competitive advantage or entry barrier in digital markets; – market definition and dominance with respect to data; – disruptive versus sustaining innovation; – role of intellectual property regimes; – economic trade-off in essential facilities cases; – relationship of competition enforcement with data protection law and – data-related competition concerns in merger cases. The author draws on a wealth of relevant material, including EU and US decision-making practice, case law, and policy documents, as well as economic and empirical literature on the link between competition and innovation. The book concludes with a proposed framework for the application of the essential facilities doctrine to potential forms of abuse of dominance relating to data. In addition, it makes suggestions as to how data protection interests can be integrated into competition policy. An invaluable contribution to ongoing academic and policy discussions about how data-related competition concerns should be addressed under competition law, the analysis clearly demonstrates how existing competition tools for market definition and assessment of dominance can be applied to online platforms. It will be of immeasurable value to the many jurists, business persons, and academics concerned with this very timely subject.

Intellectual Property and Competition Law

Intellectual Property and Competition Law
Author: Steven Anderman
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2011-02-10
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9780199589951

Examining the relationship between intellectual property and competition law with a particular focus on European law, this book highlights areas emerging new frontiers.

Multi-dimensional Approaches Towards New Technology

Multi-dimensional Approaches Towards New Technology
Author: Ashish Bharadwaj
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2018-07-23
Genre: Law
ISBN: 981131232X

This open access edited book captures the complexities and conflicts arising at the interface of intellectual property rights (IPR) and competition law. To do so, it discusses four specific themes: (a) policies governing functioning of standard setting organizations (SSOs), transparency and incentivising future innovation; (b) issue of royalties for standard essential patents (SEPs) and related disputes; (c) due process principles, procedural fairness and best practices in competition law; and (d) coherence of patent policies and consonance with competition law to support innovation in new technologies. Many countries have formulated policies and re-oriented their economies to foster technological innovation as it is seen as a major source of economic growth. At the same time, there have been tensions between patent laws and competition laws, despite the fact that both are intended to enhance consumer welfare. In this regard, licensing of SEPs has been debated extensively, although in most instances, innovators and implementers successfully negotiate licensing of SEPs. However, there have been instances where disagreements on royalty base and royalty rates, terms of licensing, bundling of patents in licenses, pooling of licenses have arisen, and this has resulted in a surge of litigation in various jurisdictions and also drawn the attention of competition/anti-trust regulators. Further, a lingering lack of consensus among scholars, industry experts and regulators regarding solutions and techniques that are apposite in these matters across jurisdictions has added to the confusion. This book looks at the processes adopted by the competition/anti-trust regulators to apply the principles of due process and procedural fairness in investigating abuse of dominance cases against innovators.

Intellectual Property and Antitrust

Intellectual Property and Antitrust
Author: Mariateresa Maggiolino
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2011-01-01
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1849809631

This book brings to bear Professor Maggiolino?s considerable skills as a comparative competition law scholar on what is perhaps the single most important competition policy issue facing us today - namely, how to use IP policy and competition policy in tandem to further both economic competition and competition in innovation. Professor Maggiolino?s book covers a large range of IP practices by dominant firms where competition law can be invoked, including "sham" litigation and product design, improper infringement actions, predation, and refusals to license. This book is well researched, well written, and completely up to date. Every serious competition law/antitrust and intellectual property scholar and practitioner should regard it as "must" reading.

Competition Law of the European Union

Competition Law of the European Union
Author: Van Bael & Bellis
Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.
Total Pages: 1618
Release: 2021-03-01
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9041154051

This new Sixth Edition of a major work by the well-known competition law team at Van Bael & Bellis in Brussels brings the book up to date to take account of the many developments in the case law and relevant legislation that have occurred since the Fifth Edition in 2010. The authors have also taken the opportunity to write a much-extended chapter on private enforcement and a dedicated section on competition law in the pharmaceutical sector. As one would expect, the new edition continues to meet the challenge for businesses and their counsel, providing a thoroughly practical guide to the application of the EU competition rules. The critical commentary cuts through the theoretical underpinnings of EU competition law to expose its actual impact on business. In this comprehensive new edition, the authors examine such notable developments as the following: important rulings concerning the concept of a restriction by object under Article 101; the extensive case law in the field of cartels, including in relation to cartel facilitation and price signalling; important Article 102 rulings concerning pricing and exclusivity, including the Post Danmark and Intel judgments, as well as standard essential patents; the current block exemption and guidelines applicable to vertical agreements, including those applicable to the motor vehicle sector; developments concerning online distribution, including the Pierre Fabre and Coty rulings; the current guidelines and block exemptions in the field of horizontal cooperation, including the treatment of information exchange; the evolution of EU merger control, including court defeats suffered by the Commission and the case law on procedural infringements; the burgeoning case law related to pharmaceuticals, including concerning reverse payment settlements; the current technology transfer guidelines and block exemption; procedural developments, including in relation to the right to privacy, access to file, parental liability, fining methodology, inability to pay and hybrid settlements; the implementation of the Damages Directive and the first interpretative rulings. As a comprehensive, up-to-date and above all practical analysis of the EU competition rules as developed by the Commission and EU Courts, this authoritative new edition of a classic work stands alone. Like its predecessors, it will be of immeasurable value to both business persons and their legal advisers.

Personal Data in Competition, Consumer Protection and Intellectual Property Law

Personal Data in Competition, Consumer Protection and Intellectual Property Law
Author: Mor Bakhoum
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 569
Release: 2018-11-02
Genre: Law
ISBN: 3662576465

This book analyses the legal approach to personal data taken by different fields of law. An increasing number of business models in the digital economy rely on personal data as a key input. In exchange for sharing their data, online users benefit from personalized and innovative services. But companies’ collection and use of personal data raise questions about privacy and fundamental rights. Moreover, given the substantial commercial and strategic value of personal data, their accumulation, control and use may raise competition concerns and negatively affect consumers. To establish a legal framework that ensures an adequate level of protection of personal data while at the same time providing an open and level playing field for businesses to develop innovative data-based services is a challenging task.With this objective in mind and against the background of the uniform rules set by the EU General Data Protection Regulation, the contributions to this book examine the significance and legal treatment of personal data in competition law, consumer protection law, general civil law and intellectual property law. Instead of providing an isolated analysis of the different areas of law, the book focuses on both synergies and tensions between the different legal fields, exploring potential ways to develop an integrated legal approach to personal data.

Intellectual Property and Competition Law

Intellectual Property and Competition Law
Author: Gustavo Ghidini
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2006-01-01
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1845429931

The book ends with a comprehensive selection of the relevant bibliography. This part is all the more valuable to the reader as Ghidini does not simply list the relevant literature but puts it in it general context and comments on it. Ghidini s book is a fascinating trip through the system of IP laws. Beatriz Conde Gallego, Intellectual Property and Competition Law Intellectual Property and Competition Law by Gustavo Ghidini provides a persuasively presented descriptive analysis of a distinctively European perspective on intellectual property law and its relationship to competition law. Professor Ghidini expertly presents the evolution of intellectual property laws and its contemporary manifestations with respect to the expansion copyright law in technological fields and the inevitability conflict with patent law, the attempt at creating monopolies (such as in biotechnology), and so much more. A seminal work of impressive and articulate scholarship, Intellectual Property and Competition Law should be considered mandatory reading for students and researchers in the field of intellectual property rights and a very strongly recommended addition to academic library International Economics and Judicial Studies reference collections. The Economics Shelf, Midwest Book Review . . . the provocative nature of this book is one of its great strengths, as are its cohesiveness and erudition. Mel Marquis, European Competition Law Review We in the United States have much to learn not only from Gustavo Ghidini s careful analysis of modern trends in the European IP regime but also from his thoughtful development of the thesis that free competition should be understood as the overarching principle guiding both IP protection and what we call antitrust law. Rudolph J.R. Peritz, New York Law School, author of Competition Policy in America and American Antitrust Institute, US This rich and challenging book offers a critical appraisal of the relationship between intellectual property law and competition law, from a particularly European perspective. Gustavo Ghidini highlights the deficiencies in studying each of these areas of law independently and argues for a more holistic approach, insisting that it is more useful, and indeed essential, to consider them as interdependent. He does this first by examining how competition and intellectual property (IP) converge, diverge, and inform one another. Secondly, he assesses how IP law can be interpreted through the guiding principles of competition law antitrust and unfair competition and within the overarching principle of free competition. The book traces the evolution of modern IP law, which it claims is marked heavily both by over-protectionist trends such as the extension of copyright law to technological fields, where it trespasses on the territory of patent law and by attempts to monopolize the achievements of basic research, such as in the example of biotechnology. Through an examination of such emerging issues as access to standards of information and patenting of genetic materials, the author makes a clear case for a reading of IP law that promotes dynamic processes of innovation by competition , and competition by innovation , with related benefits to consumer welfare such as wider choices, greater access to culture and information, and lower prices. Advanced students and researchers in all areas of intellectual property will find this book a stimulating alternative to traditional interpretations of the subject.

Patent Remedies and Complex Products

Patent Remedies and Complex Products
Author: C. Bradford Biddle
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 379
Release: 2019-06-27
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1108426751

Through a collaboration among twenty legal scholars from North America, Europe and Asia, this book presents an international consensus on the use of patent remedies for complex products such as smartphones, computer networks, and the Internet of Things. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

EU Intellectual Property Law and Policy

EU Intellectual Property Law and Policy
Author: The late Catherine Seville
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 588
Release: 2016-09-28
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1781003483

This fully updated book offers a compact and accessible account of EU intellectual property (IP) law and policy. The digital age brings many opportunities, but also presents continuing challenges to IP law as the EU’s programme of harmonisation unfolds. As well as addressing the main IP rights (copyright, patents, designs, trade marks and related rights), the book also considers IP’s relationship with the EU’s rules on free movement of goods and competition, as well as examining the enforcement of IP rights. Taking account of numerous changes, this timely second edition covers the substantive provisions and procedures which apply throughout the EU, making extensive reference to the case law. The author considers how the exploitation of IP is increasingly global; harmonisation, in contrast, is only partial, even at the EU level. In response, the book sets EU IP law in its wider international context. It also seeks to highlight policy issues and arguments of relevance to the EU, in its relations both within the Union and with the rest of the world. Designed as a compact and approachable account of these difficult and technical areas, and with advice on further reading and research, this unique book is useful both as a work of reference and for more general study. It is essential reading for postgraduate students, academic researchers and legal practitioners alike.