Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, ANTITRUST NEWS: AAI releases entrepreneurship, innovation recommendations for next President, (Jul 6, 2016)

By Greg Hammond, J.D.

The American Antitrust Institute (AAI) has released the entrepreneurship and innovation chapter of its Transition Report on Competition Policy to the 45th President of the United States, encouraging government enforcement agencies to take a number of steps to promote dynamic efficiency and entrepreneurial growth.

The release of the chapter, entitled "Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Antitrust," is the fourth in a series of previews of the forthcoming transition report available for download in advance of the November election. The AAI Presidential Transition Report makes policy recommendations based on AAI’s mission of promoting competition that protects consumers, businesses, and society.

The entrepreneurship and innovation chapter makes a number of recommendations to the next administration, including that government enforcement agencies should: (1) devote greater scrutiny to claims of efficiencies or synergies between merging parties; (2) implement, through legislation or judicial action, various procedural reforms that promise to speed up antitrust litigation, Section 2 monopolization cases in particular; (3) pursue more rigorous enforcement of the 1995 Antitrust Guidelines for the licensing of intellectual property in light of recent cases involving alleged abuse of intellectual property rights; (4) offer a more systemic approach to the review of "fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory" or FRAND licensing; (5) utilize antitrust enforcement to prevent private interference by patent owners to block regulation that promotes welfare-enhancing innovation; (6) reassert antitrust primacy or at least eliminate preemption of the antitrust laws in areas where other regulatory schemes may be prevalent, and more widely with respect to all other activities that may be overseen by federal regulatory agencies; and (7) assess the effectiveness of the "full blown" rule of reason as the standard for scrutinizing vertical contractual restraints that ostensibly promote non-price competition along quality dimensions but may tend more frequently to adversely affect consumers.

AAI is an independent, nonprofit organization devoted to promoting competition that protects consumers, businesses, and society. The Washington, D.C.-based organization serves the public through education, research, and advocacy on the benefits of competition and the use of antitrust enforcement as a vital component of national and international competition policy.

News: Antitrust