Federal Antitrust Guidelines for Licensing of Intellectual Property: Origins and Applications (ed.3)

The third edition of the Antitrust Section’s handbook on the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission’s 1995 Antitrust Guidelines for the Licensing of Intellectual Property provides a description of the enforcement agencies’ antitrust policy with respect to the licensing of patents, copyrights, trade secrets, and know-how. It also is updated to reflect the pertinent developments since the agencies issued their Guidelines fifteen years ago.Since 1995, the agencies have initiated a wide variety of enforcement actions involving intellectual property and have pursued claims ranging from alleged price fixing among patent holders to allegedly anticompetitive settlements of infringement litigation. This 224 page book discusses these enforcement actions and the recent judicial decisions in this area and also provides some historical perspective on the agencies’ current policy with respect to the licensing of intellectual property. In addition, it discusses the April 2007 report issued by the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission entitled Antitrust Enforcement and Intellectual Property Rights: Promoting Innovation and Competition, as well as other reports or statements of policy by the agencies. Finally, this edition includes materials comparing United States antitrust law regarding intellectual property licensing to European Competition policy, an important addition given the increasingly multi-jurisdictional nature of intellectual property licensing. This book is intended to serve as a practical guide for lawyers and their clients involved in intellectual property licensing transactions or engaged in antitrust litigation involving intellectual property and includes the complete text of the 1995 Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission Antitrust Guidelines for the Licensing of Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer Block Exemption.