Anticompetitive Practices or Protecting IP? 1-800 Contacts Faces Class Action Lawsuit Over Keyword Advertising Agreements

Contact lens company 1-800 Contacts is currently facing a class action lawsuit for agreements it allegedly entered into regarding online search advertising as early as 2004. Earlier this month, a class of consumers who had purchased contact lenses through the 1-800 Contacts website, including Florida resident Kathryn Champion, filed suit in federal court against the […]

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Post By Xiaohong Liu, Ph.D.

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Supreme Court: NFL collective licensing of trademarks not immune from Section 1 antitrust scrutiny

Monday the Supreme Court unanimously held the NFL's practice of collectively licensing the trademarks of all 32 individual teams is not immune from antitrust scrutiny under Section 1 of the Sherman Act. The NFL argued that because the marks are all licensed through a single entity, NFL Properties, there was no "contract, combination, . . […]

En banc Federal Circuit to address potential patent misuse issues in license practices

The Federal Circuit has agreed to hear en banc an interesting issue with regard to the potential for patent misuse in licensing. The case is Princo Corp. v. ITC. At issue is the patent pool related to the technology used for CD-R and CD-RW discs. The alleged infringer, Princo, admitted infringement before the ITC, but […]

Ninth Circuit: Sufficient evidence of fraud to defeat summary judgment on Walker Process claim

In a recent decision, the Ninth Circuit addressed the antitrust implications of so-called "reverse payments" between brand name and generic pharmaceutical companies. A health care provider brought suit against the two companies, alleging their agreement to delay the introduction of a generic pharmaceutical (which involved payment to the generic manufacturer of $4.5 million per month) […]

Second Circuit: Copyright license of indeterminate term improperly read to be perpetual

In this appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York, the Second Circuit reversed the dismissal of a copyright claim based on ambiguity in a contract, but affirmed dismissal of the antitrust claims because the plaintiff's proposed market definition was not plausible.The district court dismissed the copyright claims based […]

If no anticompetitive effect outside exclusionary zone of patent, reverse payment OK in ANDA cases

In a recent decision, the Federal Circuit upheld the district court's grant of summary judgment in an antitrust case. At issue was whether reverse payments (from the patentee to the accused infringer) in the context of the Hatch-Waxman Act violated antitrust laws. The Federal Circuit observed that "[t]he essence of the inquiry is whether the […]

Second Circuit: MLB collective trademark licensing does not violate Sherman Act

In a recent decision, the Second Circuit affirmed a district court's summary judgment to the defendant in an antitrust case regarding trademark licensing. The case involved the collective licensing setup of Major League Baseball Properties ("MLBP"). The plaintiff was a licensee of MLBP. The court held the centralized licensing agent for all Major League Baseball […]