Re: (intellectual) property rights and competition policy

[rperitz@nyls.edu (Rudolph Peritz - Faculty)]

The Microsoft & Intel cases have raised the curtain on the often conflicting
relationship between (intellectual) property rights and competition policy. 
As it happens, much of my research and writing over the years has dealt
with precisely that issue.  The "Rule of Reason" in Antitrust:
Property Logic in Restraint of Competition,  40 Hastings LJ 285
(1989) might be of interest as a study of antitrust's formative era that
takes the property-competition tension as its framework.  For example,
the four opinions in old Northern Securities case are best understood,
I believe, as a debate about the proper relationship between the fundamental
property right of selling one's business and the competition policy expressed
in the Sherman Act.  Competition Policy in America 1888-1992: History,
Rhetoric, Law (Oxford Univ. Press, 1996) covers ground beyond antitrust
and develops a framework broader than the property-competition tension,
but still pays substantial attention to them both.
Rudolph J.R. Peritz
New York Law School
rperitz@nyls.edu