It is common to characterize patents as monopolies. This assumption, which underlies the standard dichotomy between intellectual property and antitrust law, is challenged by evidence that large companies in technology markets (outside biopharmaceuticals) tend to advocate for weaker patent...

Scholars and other commentators widely assert that enforcement of contractual and other limitations on labor mobility deters innovation. Based on this view, federal and state legislators have taken, and continue to consider, actions to limit the enforcement of covenants not-to-compete in...

Information technology markets in general, and wireless communications markets in particular, rely on standardization mechanisms to develop interoperable devices for rapid and secure data processing, storage and transmission. From 2G through the emergent 5G standard, wireless communications...

Judicial decisions, agency actions and legislative enactments have promoted a creeping reversion toward the weak patent regime that prevailed for several decades preceding the establishment of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The pending Supreme Court case, Oil States Energy...

This contribution condenses the author’s previous detailed analyses of antitrust and patent policies in global smartphone markets. The discussion comprises three elements. First, it identifies the key constituencies in the smartphone ecosystem and the role each constituency plays in the...

This short contribution updates through 2018 the author’s prior empirical study on global innovation trends as indicated by USPTO patenting data during 1965-2015. The principal trends identified previously have largely continued, with the exception of a slight universal decline in annual...

Intellectual property licenses are commonly portrayed as a “tax” that limits access to technology assets, thereby stunting innovation by intermediate users and inflating prices for end-users. This presumptively skeptical view motivated postwar antitrust’s proliferation of per se rules...

This comment by 25 law professors, economists and former United States government officials was submitted to the European Union Commission in response to a “call for evidence” on the licensing, litigation, and remedies of standard-essential patents (SEPs). It details the principal concepts...

The Federal Trade Commission’s initiative to use rulemaking powers to target “unfair methods of competition” under the FTC Act is part of a broader package of dramatic recent changes in antitrust enforcement policy and practice by FTC leadership. These changes, which have rejected the...

This comment by 27 law professors, economists and former government officials was submitted to the Department of Justice in response to a call for comments on a draft policy statement on standard essential patents (SEPs). Although the draft policy statement is right to seek a “balanced,...