The Basics Matter : At the Periphery of Intellectual Property

Controversies often arise at the interfaces where intellectual property ("IP") law meets other topics in law and economics, such as property law, contract law, and antitrust law. Participants in the debates over how to mediate these interfaces often view each interface as a special case deserving unique treatment under the law. The doctrines of copyright and patent misuse are cases in point: they graft select antitrust principles onto copyright or patent law, even though there is an entirely distinct body of law - antitrust law - designed to deal with the putative concerns about competition that allegedly give rise to misuse. In this essay, we argue that a better approach for mediating disputes at the periphery of IP law focuses on what we term the "basics" - or core principles and features - of each area of law, and rarely requires specialized frameworks. For example, according to our "basics matter" approach, there is no need to create special doctrines or approaches to address issues relating to matters such as price discrimination or restrictive licensing arrangements involving IP. Rather, analyzing the legality of such arrangements simply requires one to look to the basics of substantive IP law, antitrust law, and what some people call the "general law" - property law, contract law, and the like. Applying the basics of each area of the law gives us a workable - and more predictable - framework of analysis than creating one - with more specialized approaches, such as the doctrines of copyright or patent misuse, using the basics results in easier to apply rules for resolving disputes that transacting parties can better understand and rely on in advance. By reducing legal uncertainty, the "basics matter" approach facilitates the ex ante coordination necessary to promote innovation through the commercialization of the inventions, symbols, and creative works that are protected by patents, copyrights, and trademarks - the entire goal of IP law and an important goal of antitrust law