Re: FTC's 1996 report on high tech competition policy

[charles mueller <cmueller@metrolink.net>]

        I thought the FTC's 1996 report on Competition Policy in the New
High Tech Marketplace was a poorly written piece of sophistry designed to
justify the agency's longstanding--and continuing--unwillingness to
seriously enforce the country's antitrust laws, particularly its acceptance
of patently anticompetitive mergers, e.g., Boeing/McD.

        Charles Mueller, Editor
        ANTITRUST LAW & ECONOMICS REVIEW
        http://webpages.metrolink.net/~cmueller

        

At 07:30 PM 2/2/98 -0500, you wrote:
>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
>
>-----------------
>
>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
>