Causation is one of the most underexplored areas in antitrust law. What must a plaintiff show to connect a defendant’s conduct with anticompetitive effects? Several tests are possible, including “but for” causation, proximate cause, sole causation, reasonable connection, and increased...

Using the sleep-disorder drug Provigil as a case study, this short symposium piece explores the anticompetitive harm presented by the combination of two distinct activities. First, brand-name drug firms such as Cephalon, the developer of Provigil, have settled patent litigation by paying generic...

Climate change is one of the most important issues of the twenty-first century. With the Earth’s fate literally hanging in the balance, observers increasingly recognize the fragility of the planet’s ecosystem. Rising temperatures, hurricanes, floods, wildfires, droughts, tropical storms, and...

In the most important ruling ever on causation and standard-setting, In re Rambus, the D.C. Circuit made it unnecessarily difficult to demonstrate causation. It erected roadblock after roadblock in front of legitimate cases alleging monopolization in the standard-setting context. The primary...

One of the most amorphous rules in antitrust is the rule of reason. One of the most important rules in antitrust is the rule of reason. One of the most misunderstood rules in antitrust is the rule of reason. Put together these three propositions and you have the making of real trouble. A decade...

In FTC v. Actavis, the Supreme Court held that a payment from a brand firm to a generic firm, in exchange for the generic’s agreement to delay entering the market, could violate the antitrust laws. In In re Wellbutrin XL Antitrust Litigation, defendants claim that the Court’s antitrust...

This short piece responds to Alan Morrison’s post on SCOTUSblog that the Supreme Court’s Actavis decision is unclear because of its emphasis on “large and unjustified” payments. The piece first explains that the payments at issue in "reverse payment" cases are, by definition, likely to...

This short article summarizes FTC v. Actavis, the first case in which the Supreme Court analyzed the antitrust legality of agreements by which brand-name drug companies pay generics to settle patent litigation and delay entering the market. It concludes that the ruling must be counted as a win...

Innovation is crucial to the U.S. economy. But many of our laws and policies are not promoting innovation. This Essay addresses this problem. The first set of proposals focuses on copyright law. The recommendations avoid vague copyright law and suggest the elimination of statutory damages and...

This Supreme Court amicus brief, filed in Federal Trade Commission v. Watson, explains why exclusion-payment settlements, by which brand-name drug companies pay generic firms to delay entering the market, contravene the policies of patent law, antitrust law, and the Hatch-Waxman Act. It...