ICN: Recommended Practices on the Assessment of Dominance and Substantial Market Power adopted

This happened at the International Competition Network 2008 Conference, Kyoto. The Reccomended Practices have now been published on the ICN website.

FTC supports broader jurisdiction over non-profit

Testifying before Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on proposed ‘Federal Trade Commission Reauthorization Act of 2008, the Commission supported repealing FTC Act's exemption for certain non-profit entities, such as in health-care, see the Prepared Statement.

Comisión Nacional de la Competencia launches investigation on football television rights

In particular, the Spanish competition authority intends to investigate if agreements between media operators and football clubs have exclusionary effects. See CNC press release

UK Competition Commission: market investigation on the supply of groceries

A highly informative, 269-page Study.
Features that (still) prevent, restrict or distort competition:
- barriers to entry leading to highly concentrated local markets;
- buyer power, when "grocery retailers transfer excessive risks or unexpected costs to their suppliers".

New Antitrust Law in China

The new Antimonopoly Law (AML) will go into effect in August 2008. See a first comment by NERA consultants Fei Deng and Gregory Leonard. Cfr. also Lorenz, Moritz, The new Chinese Competition Act, In: European competition law review ; 29(2008), 257-263

Bundeskartellamt: Abwägungsklausel in der Fusionskontrolle angewendet

Laut einer Pressemitteilung der deutschen Wettbewerbsbehörde überwiegen bei der Übernahme von sieben Tochtergesellschaften der Orion Cable durch KDG die Vorteile für den Wettbewerb die Nachteile. Im Übrigen konnten die Zusammenschlussbeteiligten nachweisen, dass aufgrund des Zusammenschlusses Verbesserungen der Wettbewerbsbedingungen auf den Märkten für Breitbandanschlüsse (DSL) und für schmalbandige Anschlüsse eintreten werden.

Issues for Academic Authors, Institutional Repositories, Open Access Journals and End-Users

Paper by Brian Fitzgerald and Anthony Austin, presented at the Open Repositories Conference 2008. Commercial publishers to co-exist with open access publishing.

BITKOM Leitfaden zur Patentierung computerimplementierter Erfindungen

Der Bundesverband Informationswirtschaft, Telekommunikation und neue Medien (Bitkom) hat einen 40 Seiten umfassenden Leitfaden erstellt, der IT-Erfindern bei Patenanträgen helfen soll.

2004 EU Microsoft Decision: Third set of fines (€ 899 million) against Microsoft for non-compliance

Decision adopted under Article 24(2) of Regulation 1/2003.
According to the EU Commission, Microsoft charged unreasonable prices for access to interface documentation for work group servers during a period starting on 21 June 2006 to 21 October 2007. As from 22 October 2007 Microsoft changed its previous conditions, providing for a licence giving access to the interoperability information for a flat fee of €10 000 and an optional worldwide patent licence for a reduced royalty of 0.4 % of licensees’ product revenues. See also Commission MEMO/08/125 and the transcript (on Groklaw) of Neelie Kroes Statement.

SUBITO Dokumentenlieferdienst: Neue Bedingungen

Nach einem Heise Bericht vom 24.02.2008:
- der Endkunde kann das per E-Mail-Lieferung gekaufte Dokument "ansehen und zweimal ausdrucken";
- spätestens einen Monat nach dem Datum der Lieferung läuft das elektronische Dokument zudem unwiderruflich ab "und ist nicht mehr zugänglich";
- jede Seite des Ausdrucks wird mit einem Wasserzeichen versehen;
- Subito explizit angeschlossene Lieferbibliotheken dürfen Kopien nur noch über den Dienst ausliefern, und nicht mehr etwa über andere übliche Leihverkehrsordnungen;
- Preise für den elektronischen Versand wurden auf mindestens 7,75 Euro angehoben;
- Subito führt bei den PDF-Kopien auf Lizenzbasis im Gegensatz zu den auf minimal 6,50 Euro festgesetzten Fax- oder Postlieferungen keine Kopiervergütung mehr an die VG Wort ab;
- Subito und die Lieferbibliotheken sollen innerhalb von 18 Monaten die Möglichkeiten schaffen, binnen Jahresfrist höchstens zehn Kopien aus einer einzelnen Zeitschrift pro Institution (oder auch Kundenbibliothek, Campus) zu versenden. Über die betroffenen Journale soll ein Ausschuss von Subito und den Verlagen entscheiden.
Armin Talke, Mitglied der DBV-Rechtskommission, hat inzwischen ein ausführliches Paper zu Auslegungsschwierigkeiten beim Kopienversand (§ 53a UrhG) veröffentlicht.

Neelie Kroes: 2008 Competition Policy challenges...

Speech delivered at the 100th meeting of the OECD Competition Committee. Rather vague, really. Among others, the issue of the more economic approach to art.82 was not touched on. But, perhaps, it is still coming..

ECJ ruling on responsibility for antitrust infringement

Case C-280/06 Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato v. Ente tabacchi italiani .
The questions referred for a preliminary ruling by the Consiglio di Stato related to an infringement committed by an entity which then underwent a legal and organisational change (measures taken by the legislature in view of the entity's privatisation). The Court makes clear that:
- " When ... an entity infringes competition rules, it falls, according to the principle of personal responsibility, to that entity to answer for that infringement;
- "As to the circumstances in which an entity that is not responsible for the infringement can nevertheless be penalised for that infringement, it must be held first that this situation arises if the entity that has committed the infringement has ceased to exist, either in law... or economically; otherwise "undertakings could escape penalties by simply changing their identity through restructurings, sales or other legal or organisational change";
- ..."when an entity that has committed an infringement of the competition rules is subject to a legal or organisational change, this change does not necessarily create a new undertaking free of liability for the conduct of its predecessor that infringed the competition rules, when, from an economic point of view, the two are identical";
- "where two entities constitute one economic entity, the fact that the entity that committed the infringement still exists does not as such preclude imposing a penalty on the entity to which its economic activities were transferred.."; In particular, "applying penalties in this way is permissible where those entities have been subject to control by the same person within the group and have therefore, given the close economic and organisational links between them, carried out, in all material respects, the same commercial instructions".

Antitrust/IP: FTC challenges settlements with generic drug manufacturers on Provigil

The suit has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against Cephalon. According to the Commission, Cephalon, faced with threat to its Provigil monopoly, paid more than $200 million to generic drug companies to abandon their patent challenges and forgo entry into the market until April 2012. As Cephalon's CEO allegedly put it shortly after entering these settlements: "We were able to get six more years of patent protection. That's $4 billion in sales no one expected".
The FTC is clearly taking the issue very seriously, see also here.

Consultation publique sur la procedure d'engagements lancée en France

Le Conseil de la Concurrence a publié un projet de communiqué de procédure relatif aux engagements, sur lequel une consultation publique à été ouverte (jusqu'au 15 mars 2008).
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Microsoft and standards setting: yet another antitrust issue?

This might be the case according to the Wall Street Jounal, 8 Feb. 2008, in connection with the alleged attempts by Microsoft to pressure countries to ratify the Office Open XML (OOXML) file standard within the ISO (International Organization for Standardization).

At the intersection between copyright and trademark law: Federal Court of Australia on Polo/Lauren's embroidered polo player logo

It would seem rather obvious that firms should not be entitled to control the market for their products "only" by devising a label or a package in which copyright will subsist. This principle has been clearly spelled out by the Federal Court of Australia in The Polo/Lauren Company L.P. v Ziliani Holdings Pty Ltd [2008] FCA 49 (5 February 2008). The issue involved an injunction to restrain importation and sale of clothing bearing embroidered polo player logo without licence of the owner of copyright, whereas the logo was lawfully embroidered in country of manufacture with licence of owner of copyright. The Court ruled, relying on s 44C Copyright Act (socalled exception of a non-infringing accessory) that the the importer is entitled to engage in parallel importing of those goods into Australia. In particular, the embroidered polo player logo was not primarily a decorative feature, but "a symbol to convey that the clothing was made by the Ralph Lauren design or fashion house. It is a ‘signature’ or label conveying that information of the garment’s provenance" in the meaning of subsection 10(1) Copyright Act.

Balance between Antitrust and IP Laws: Drug Patent Settlement Agreements

The FTC filed a brief as amicus curiae with the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on 25 January 2008 urging to reverse a district court's decision that immunized from antitrust laws a pharmaceutical patent settlement agreement. In the case at bar, a patent holder paid a potential rival $400 million to abandon competition and stay off the market. According to the FTC, the patent holder "purchased the exclusion that the patent could not provide". The agreement did not represent the patent holder's exercise of its right to exclude and therefore the patent did not immunize the agreement from antitrust scrutiny.

Canadian songwriters propose a new right to equitable remuneration for music file sharing

The proposal in a nutshell:
- a new right limited to activities that take place without motive of financial gain;
- this new right should make it legal to "share music between two or more parties, whether over Peer to Peer networks, wireless networks, email, CD, DVD, hard drives etc";
- it would be distinct from private copying;
- in exchange, Creators and rights holders would be entitled to receive a monthly license fee from each internet and wireless account in Canada (proposed: $5.00 per internet subscription, per month)
- this would make Technical Protection Measures obsolete, but not Rights Management Information (RMI) protection "since RMIs will assist in the identification of files and the attribution of rights without posing any problems for consumers".

Non-Horizontal Merger Guidelines adopted

These 26-page Guidelines apply to mergers between companies either active each at a different level of the supply chain (vertical mergers) or in complementary or otherwise related markets (conglomerate mergers). As with vertical restraints and other business practices, the Commission is willing to recognize that such mergers could engender efficiency gains. Among the anticompetitive effects, the possibility that competing companies are denied access to an inportant supplier or face increased prices for this inputs and this results in higher prices for consumers (and less innovative products?).
As in other areas of EU competition law, the Guidelines foresee "save harbours", that is levels of market share and concentration below which anticompetive concern are unlikely.
Yet another example of the "more economic approach", it seems.

iPhone et les opérateurs télécoms: un joli exemple de concurrence verticale à l'intérieur de la filière

Un nouveau modèle économique sur le marché de la téléphonie mobile. En contrepartie d'une exclusivité de plus de 24 mois, Apple reçoit des revenus récurrents, entre 10 et 30 % des revenus génerés par l'opérateur sur l'iPhone. Ceci grâce à la force d'attractivité de la marque iPhone...

Bekämpfung von Preismissbrauch in der Energiewirtschaft: Gesetz in Deutschland verabschiedet

Der Deutsche Bundestag hat am 15.11.2007 das „Gesetz zur Bekämpfung von Preismissbrauch im Bereich der Energieversorgung und des Lebensmittelhandels“ (s. den Gesetzesentwurf) verabschiedet. Der neu geschaffene § 29 GWB, der allerdings bis 2012 befristet ist, soll es den Kartellbehörden erleichtern, Preise von Elektrizität und Gas zu untersagen, welche die Kosten unangemessen überschreiten oder erheblich höher sind als die Preise von Vergleichsunternehmen.
S. hinzu das kritische Sondergutachten der Monopolkommission.

Comcast against peer-to-peer: consumers complain to the FCC

Consumers groups have filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission against Comcast, the US number two provider of high-speed Internet access . They ask the FCC to enforce its policy principles on network neutrality by requiring Comcast to stop secretely degrading peer-to-peer applications such as BitTorrent.

Online games protected as films?

A Study by the European Audiovisual Observatory deals (also) with this issue. It is beyond doubt that larger-scale computer games like War of Warcraft create the impression of a moving image. If they are the result of an individual creation process, they could be protected as films, the Study affirms.

Office of Fair Trading: revised guidance on the 'markets of insufficient importance' exception

Crucial, according to the guidance issued by the OFT, is the expected impact of the transaction on consumer welfare. This is established according to three main elements: market size, magnitude of competition lost by the merger, and the likely duration of that loss.
Market size is the sum of all suppliers' annual turnover in the UK in that affected market; where a merger results in several affected markets, the relevant figure will be the aggregate size of all such markets. In case of rapid market growth or decline, this will be taken into account in calculating future market size and importance. "Below the £10 million market size threshold, the OFT would generally consider the market to be of insufficient importance to justify a reference", subject to some caveats:
- very high market concentration and low entry prospects
- evidence of coordination
- the case raises novel issues
- "vulnerable" consumers would suffer a substantial proportion of the likely detriment.

Revision of Italian Copyright Law: Have Your Say (but Be Quick)!

Copyright law has become a hot issue, subject to vigorous pressures by well-organised groups, as the 2006 approval of the new French Droit d'auteur has once again shown. But copyright issues are increasingly important also to ordinary citizens, who might want to express their views. The Commissions for the Revision of Italian Copyright Law are apparently more than willing to listen to what all interested parties have to say about the copyright rules they would wish for. The only problem is that the time to do this -at least online, in a transparent way - is much too short, only one week (15-22 November).

Monopolkommission: Sondergutachten zum Energiesektor

Mit dem Titel „Strom und Gas 2007: Wettbewerbsdefizite und zögerliche Regulierung“ (283 S.).
Wichtigste Ergebnisse, laut Pressemitteilung. Kein funktionsfähiger Wettbewerb auf den Märkten der leitungsgebundenen Energieversorgung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Die Monopolkommission empfiehlt daher die Senkung insbesondere der strukturellen Marktzutrittsschranken und stellt ein Maßnahmenpaket zusammen.

Economic Analysis of Private Copy Remuneration (PCR), Requested by GESAC

Economic analysis of copyright legislation: be prepared to see more of it in the future.
The Econlaw Study focuses on the music sector.
"..(W)e find that the incentives put in place by the PCR system should translate into an increase in the stock of music titles of around 1.5 percent in a period of 25 years. This increase would in turn compensate for the short-term negative effects on the joint welfare of consumers and producers of CE products, increasing total welfare by around 2.8 percent in a period of 25 years, although three fourths of the positive effects would already be in place after a period of 5 years. Regardless of the particular assumptions, the base-line conclusion is that the dynamic mid- and long- term effects of the PCR system on content supply compensate for the negative short-term effects calculated in our static analysis. In sum, the economic impact of the PCR system is not negative and could increase total welfare", p. 11.
According to the Study, exemption systems from payment in favour of certain types of users would be inefficient : more information and transaction costs, and this would in the end impact all participants (also the beneficiaries of the exemption), p. 13.

Consumers' Rights to Damages in Antitrust: A Speech by Commissioner Kroes

A speech held in Lisbon, 9th November 2007.
The announced White Paper on damage actions for breach of the EC competition rules (due for the early months of 2008) will deal specifically with collective redress mechanisms, such as representative actions by consumer associations.

Google/DoubleClick Merger and its Impact on "Privacy Innovation"

After Competition Commissioner Kroes made clear that EU review won't cover privacy issue, Privacy International and the European Digital Rights Initiative point to the merger's negative implications for dynamic competition on the market for "privacy in advertising".

How competitive is the information technology industry today? Very competitive, according to Microsoft

Read the MEMORANDUM OF POINTS AND AUTHORITIES OF MICROSOFT CORPORATION IN OPPOSITION TO CERTAIN PLAINTIFF STATES’ MOTIONS TO EXTEND THE FINAL JUDGMENTS.

Rechtsfragen bei E-Learning

Ein Praxis-Leitfaden von Rechtsanwalt Till Kreutzer im Auftrag des Multimedia-Kontors Hamburg. Ein Pod-Interview mit RA Kreutzer kann als Einführung gelten. Besonders lesenswert aus meiner Sicht ist die praxisnahe Besprechung der in Betracht kommenden Schrankenregelungen (§§ 51, 52a, 53) auch weil ich mich gerade mit diesem Thema beschäftige..

Defensive and Offensive Schemes to Protect IP Made Plain

A Study by Deloitte Research

American Antitrust Institute: FTC to Block the Google/DoubleClick Merger

AAI White Paper, main points, in my view:
-Google and DoubleClick considered (at least, potential) horizontal competitors in two relevant markets: market for distributing online advertising space of third party (non-search) web sites and market for publisher ad serving tools
- therefore, "(I)f the evidence confirms that these markets are concentrated and that entry is otherwise difficult, as appears to be the case, then the merger presents a relatively straightforward case for challenge under the horizontal and non-horizontal merger guidelines"
- "The upshot of the merger may be higher costs for web publishers to sell their advertising space, which ultimately
may affect the diversity and richness of content available on the Internet and the vibrancy of the media".

Australian Competition Authority holding a different view, it seems

Academic Paper on the modernisation of the European Television without Frontiers Directive

Main issues:
-distinction between linear and non-linear services deemed artificial
- audiovisual services on the internet too heavily regulated
- conflict with standard jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights
- regulation of non-linear services not necessary

The Impact of Music Downloads and P2P File-Sharing on the

Economic study on the effects associated with the P2P file sharing (Department of Management Birkbeck, University of London).
Main findings, based on a survey of Canadian consumers' habits: P2P filesharing tends to increase rather than decrease music purchasing

Fair Use Principles for User Generated Video Content

Standards endorsed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other public interest groups such as the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School.
Some statements worth considering:
(1) "..where copyrighted materials are employed for purposes of comment, criticism, reporting, parody, satire, or scholarship, or as the raw material for other kinds of creative and transformative works, the resulting work will likely fall within the bounds of fair use"
(2) but fair use is not enough: independently thereof, uses that are "noncommercial, creative, and transformative in nature should not be pursued.
(3) automated content identification technologies (“filters”) to monitor their systems for potential copyright infringements should incorporate protections for fair use
(4) filtering technologies should establish three conditions before taking down or blocking content:
- the video track matches the video track of a copyrighted work submitted by a content owner;
- the audio track matches the audio track of that same copyrighted work; and
- nearly the entirety (e.g, 90% or more) of the challenged content is comprised
of a single copyrighted work (i.e., a “ratio test”).
(5) Moreover, "Human creators should be afforded the opportunity to dispute the conclusions of automated filters.

See previous wavesnews

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission clears Google's acquisition of DoubleClick

From the press release:
"A key focus of the ACCC's investigation was whether the combination of Google's network of website publishers and DoubleClick's ad serving capabilities would enable the merged entity to increase the cost of ad serving to website publishers and advertisers.

"In reaching its decision, the ACCC noted that Google and DoubleClick are not close competitors in the provision of ad serving. In addition, the ACCC also took into account the presence of other competitors in this market that would be likely to constrain the merged entity post-merger".

ACCC not to intervene in Google's acquisition of DoubleClick

Competition Bureau Generic Drug Sector Study

Key findings, in my opinion:
- generic manufacturers compete by offering pharmacies rebates off invoice prices (to be considered, however, that two Canadian provinces prohibit rebates); rebates are substantial (on average 40 per cent of the price the pharmacy
is invoiced)
- but this competition is not reflected in prices paid for the purchase of generics
- as the Competition Bureau concludes: "A regulatory and market framework where incentives to supply drug plans more closely reflect the underlying market dynamics could provide significant benefits to drug plans, and in turn to insurers, employers and Canadians".

Competition Bureau Generic Drug Sector Study.pdf (Objet application/pdf)

FTC hosting a conference on behavioral advertising

eHavioral Advertising: Tracking, Targeting, & Technology

The Librarians

On Australian ABC TV: can copyright issues be dramatized?

Conference Papers: Economics of Competition and Innovation

Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)

European Commission seeks mandate to negotiate

Microsoft's licensing terms following the CFI ruling and the agreement with the EU Commission

The Microsoft Work Group Server Protocol Program License Agreements for Development and Product Distribution (WSPP Development Agreements)

Onsite consultation and copyright law

Presentation (in Italian) given at the Milan Conference "Diritto e tecnologie digitali per la valorizzazione e l'accessibilità delle conoscenze", Friday, 19 October 2007.

English Schools v. Microsoft licensing arrangements

From Becta: Becta, the government's education technology agency, has today made a complaint to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) for alleged anti-competitive practices by Microsoft in the schools software marketplace and in relation to Microsoft's approach to document interoperability.

Principles for User Generated Content Services

Principles to be read here. Self-regulation and copyright. Comments on the so called filter alliance to be read on heise.

Gesang unter der Dusche erlaubt..

Amtsgericht Köln, Urteil vom 27. 09. 2007, Aktenzeichen 137 C 293/07. Nach Heise: "Denn zwar geschah das Singen "öffentlich" im Sinne von § 19 Abs. 2 UrhG. Weiterhin verlange die Vorschrift jedoch eine Darbietung, andernfalls wäre diese Bezeichnung im Gesetz überflüssig. "Nicht alles, was öffentlich geschieht, ist aber deswegen zwangsläufig eine Darbietung", befand im konkreten Fall das Gericht. Vielmehr handele es sich hier "um ein eigenes, dem Werkgenuss dienendes Singen und Musizieren, das urheberrechtsfrei ist". Die anwesenden Gäste wären nicht "dazu eingeladen, den Gesängen der Burschenschafter zu lauschen". Nach Deutung des Gerichts war es den Gästen "zumindest freigestellt, sogar mitzusingen". Daran ändere auch das Klavierspiel nichts, denn dieses sei als bloße Begleitung zu beurteilen, "die den Zweck gehabt haben mag, den Gesang zu stützen oder die Feierlichkeit des Geschehens zu unterstreichen."

Canada: Revision of the Predatory Pricing Enforcement Guidelines

The Bureau seeks now public comments on the revised Guidelines, which make a clear choice for an average avoidable cost standard. Also, "price matching" will be considered as a reasonable business justification.

On the (un)patentability of business methods

Interesting decision about the (un)patentability of business methods, also retracing the history of patent protection, and showing its (frequently overseen) limits and bounderies.
The Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit asserts that
"It is thus clear that the present statute does not allow patents to be issued on particular business systems—such as a particular type of arbitration—that depend entirely on the use of mental processes. In other words, the patent statute does not allow patents on particular systems that depend for their operation on human intelligence alone, a field of endeavor that both the framers and Congress intended to be beyond the reach of patentable subject matter. Thus, it is established that the application of human intelligence to the solution of practical problems is not in and of itself patentable". However "When an unpatentable mental process is combined with a machine, the combination may produce patentable subject matter, as the Supreme Court’s decision in Diehr and our own decisions in State Street Bank and AT&T have confirmed." But "The routine addition of modern electronics to an otherwise unpatentable invention typically creates a prima facie case of obviousness".

Class Action Complaint Against Apple concerning iPhone

Here the text of the complaint. The facts can be briefly reckoned as follows: - AT&T is the exclusive provider for iPhone cell phone service in the United States; - the duration of the exclusive agreement is to be five years; - Apple is to receive a portion of AT&T’s profit; - iPhone consumers are to be prohibited from using a cell phone carrier other than AT&T; - Apple is to be restrained for a period of time from developing a version of the iPhone for CDMA wireless networks.
As far as competition law is concerned, the facts invest the tying doctrine. In this case, the tying product is the iPhone, whereas the tied product is AT&T's cell phone service.One of the central questions would be: Has Apple sufficient economic power in the tying market to coerce the purchase of the tied product?