FTC's 1996 report on high tech competition policy

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

I thought the FTC's 1996 report on Competition Policy in the New High
Tech Marketplace was very good, at least in the areas that I read.  This
report is on the web at: http://www.ftc.gov/opp/global.htm (no period). 
On January 31, 1998, I submitted initial comments to the FTAA's Business
Form's Working Group on Intellectual property.  Section 10 of our
comments included a quote from the 1996 FTC report.  Jamie

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10.  Avoid problems associated with overbroad patent or copyright
protection, and anticompetitive barriers to the development of
interoperable works.  Here it is useful to quote from the May 1996 U.S.
Federal Trade Commission staff report, Competition Policy in the New
High-Tech, Global Marketplace:

         Some participants expressed concern that overbroad 
         copyright scope might either create disincentives 
         for, or erect roadblocks against, follow-on 
         innovation. One computer industry representative 
         found overbroad copyright scope "harmful to progress 
         because software, more than anything, is a series of 
         inventions piled on top of each other."[77] Another 
         emphasized that broad copyright scope can create a 
         risk of "overcompensation" in the sense that "[a]n 
         author or inventor with too broad a monopoly over a 
         work can seek compensation from authors of inventors 
         of [interoperable] works, driving up the cost of 
         such works, [and ultimately] resulting in fewer works 
         being produced."[78] Others suggested that broad scope 
         could thwart efforts to enhance interoperability, which 
         would in turn impact the growth of computer networks, 
         the anticipated source of substantial innovation in the 
         near term.[79] Some suggested that the owner of a 
         software copyright should be prevented from enforcing 
         its copyright as to the interface, especially once that
         interface has become a standard,[80] or they advocated 
         compulsory licensing of interface standards that dominate 
         the market.[81]  [Footnotes are reported in original, and 
         in CPT's 1997 position paper].   See: Anticipating the 
         21st Century: Competition Policy in the New High-Tech, 
         Global Marketplace, a Report by the Federal Trade 
         Commission Staff, Vol. 1. May 1996.  The entire report 
         is on the Web at:  http://www.ftc.gov/opp/global.htm.



-- 
James Love
Consumer Project on Technology
P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
love@cptech.org | http://www.cptech.org
202.387.8030, fax 202.234.5176