This paper focuses on the class of legal rules that governs intellectual property rights: the antitrust limits imposed on patent settlements. The paper discusses the benefits and costs of settlements and explains why antitrust limits on settlements are needed to prevent abuse of the settlement...

Passage of the Sherman Act in the United States in 1890 set the stage for a century of jurisprudence regarding monopoly, cartels, and oligopoly. Among American statutes that regulate commerce, the Sherman Act is unequaled in its generality. The Act outlawed "every contract, combination or...

In several key industries, including semiconductors, biotechnology, computer software, and the Internet, our patent system is creating a patent thicket: an overlapping set of patent rights requiring that those seeking to commercialize new technology obtain licenses from multiple patentees. The...