Views on matters shaping
Competition Law and Intellectual Property

VIEW:

CLIP of
the month

CLIP of the month: The rise of the anti-suit injunction: tackling the latest challenge in FRAND disputes

CLIP of the month: Oxera study warns against heavy-handed regulation of digital platforms

03.05.2022

At a time when legislators and competition authorities around the world are looking for ways to ‘tackle’ the...

Making a Bad Situation Worse? Proposed Changes to the EU R&D Block Exemption and Guidelines

08.04.2022

On 1 March, the European Commission (EC) issued draft texts for a new R&D block exemption (Draft R&D BER)...

CLIP of the month: EC publishes draft new Horizontal Guidelines – three steps back (and one forward?)

30.03.2022

On 1 March, the European Commission (EC) issued draft replacement texts for its core documents on agreements between...

Don’t mess with the NHS: CMA issues £35m fine for pay-for-delay agreements concerning anti-nausea drug

23.02.2022

Last month the CMA continued its long-standing scrutiny of the pharmaceutical sector, handing out a combined £35...

CLIP of the month: AG Rantos abuse of dominance

14.02.2022

Introduction This month’s CLIP is the opinion delivered by Advocate General Rantos (AG Rantos) in Servizio...

Exhaustion of intellectual property rights in the UK post-Brexit – asymmetry to continue indefinitely

01.02.2022

The current UK position in relation to the exhaustion of intellectual property (IP) rights – an asymmetric...

Updated CMA merger guidance as NSI Act comes into force

07.01.2022

The CMA has now published updated merger guidance to reflect the commencement of the new NSI regime. The revised...

CLIP of the month: safeguarding pro-competitive collaborations in the life sciences sector

03.12.2021

This month’s CLIP is a column by Andrew C. Finch & Stefan Geirhofer entitled ‘Features of Procompetitive...

Ketian v Hitachi: China’s first compulsory licence?

25.11.2021

On 23 April 2021, the Ningbo Intermediate People’s Court handed down a judgment which found, through the...

CLIP of the month: patent pledges and EU competition law

01.11.2021

This blog often deals with the competition law implications of owning Standards Essential Patents (‘SEPs’) and...

Illumina/Grail: bio-tech companies in the firing line as the European Commission expands the limits of European merger control

13.10.2021

The DNA sequencing giant Illumina is locked in a battle with the European Commission (EC) over its $7.1 billion...

CLIP of the month: the end of most favoured nation clauses?

06.10.2021

This month’s CLIP is a blog post by Adrian Deuschle covering a decision by the German Federal Supreme Court...

Sustainable cooperation: Green Deal Policy Brief reflects European Commission’s drive for environmentally-friendly innovation

04.10.2021

On 10 September 2021 the European Commission released a policy brief on the role of competition law in realising the...

CLIP of the month: the European Commission draft revised Vertical Guidelines – no agency protection for online platforms

01.09.2021

The European Commission recently released its draft revised Vertical Block Exemption Regulation (VBER) and Vertical...

Should the CMA investigate the music industry?

12.08.2021

The House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee has recently published a significant report on its...

CLIP of the month: defining markets for Facebook and other digital platforms

02.08.2021

This month’s CLIP is a recent thought piece on defining markets for digital platforms from the influential US...

European Commission requires diesel car makers to clean up their act in ground-breaking punishment of technical cooperation

26.07.2021

On 8 July 2021 the European Commission fined BMW and the Volkswagen group €875 million for colluding to restrict...

Brave new online world? The Commission proposes a new approach to digital platforms in the draft verticals regime

23.07.2021

The European Commission’s long-awaited draft revised Vertical Block Exemption Regulation (VBER) and Vertical...

CLIP of the month: joint technology competition policy dialogue

02.07.2021

This month’s CLIP is a recent joint statement by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and US...

Not just another excessive pricing case: pharma stock management in the spotlight in the Commission’s Aspen Decision

30.06.2021

Earlier this year we commented on the commitments given by Aspen Pharma to bring the Commission investigation into...

US Second Circuit reverses FTC decision on online advertising restrictions

24.06.2021

In a significant case on the competition/IP interface, which we first discussed on this blog a couple of years ago,...

The CAT’s latest Paroxetine “pay-for-delay” judgment: market definition confusion

17.06.2021

The 10 May 2021 supplementary judgment of the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) in the Paroxetine case upholds the...

Preliminary reference round-up: Forthcoming guidance on pharma and tech disputes, and a couple of missed opportunities

09.06.2021

The UK may have left the EU, and Court of Justice (CJEU) judgments therefore no longer rule supreme on this side of...

Team CMA: World Merger Police

04.06.2021

On 21 May in Sabre v Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”), the Competition Appeal Tribunal (“CAT”)...

CLIP of the month: CMA and ICO unveil plans for cooperation in digital markets

01.06.2021

On 19 May the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) published...

EU Competitor Collaboration Rules, including R&D and Information Sharing, set to change

12.05.2021

Sharp on the heels of its review of its rules on vertical agreements (see here), the European Commission has also...

UK National Investment and Security Bill receives royal assent

06.05.2021

The UK National Security and Investment Bill was granted royal assent on 29 April, in a move that will transform the...

CLIP of the month: Is music streaming a level playing field?

04.05.2021

This month’s CLIP is an article on Competition Policy International relating to competition in music streaming....

When appealing a CMA Decision can increase your penalty: the Roland appeal

27.04.2021

In April 2018, the CMA opened five investigations in the musical instrument sector relating to alleged...

CAT upholds the CMA’s nortriptyline information sharing decision – Lexon v CMA [2021] CAT 5

20.04.2021

Earlier this year, the CAT issued its first judgment on the raft of cases initiated by the CMA into the UK generics...

CLIP of the month: CMA report on algorithms and consumer harm

09.04.2021

The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) made a splash with the publication earlier this year of its paper...

Deutsche Telekom/Slovak Telekom – CJEU clarifies the scope of Bronner and the law on refusal to supply

01.04.2021

Last week, on 25 March, the CJEU handed down its judgments in Deutsche Telekom and Slovak Telekom (cases C-152/19 P...

Patent settlement agreements and competition law – a new podcast series

19.03.2021

Ahead of the much-anticipated Court of Justice decision in Lundbeck (due to be handed down on 26 March 2021), we...

Should the patent procurement process fall under the remit of antitrust law? – A US perspective

09.03.2021

Following on from a recent CLIP of the month post on the lawfulness of strategic patenting under EU competition law,...

Distributor, agent or both? The Commission’s Working Paper on “dual role” agents

03.03.2021

As mentioned previously (for example here), the European Commission is currently reviewing the Vertical Agreements...

CLIP of the month: Competition law vs regulation in the digital space

01.03.2021

Digital platforms continue to be a hot topic for competition policy. Both the Commission and the CMA have been...

Which? takes on Qualcomm with claim for UK consumers – A guide to the legal challenges ahead

26.02.2021

Which?, the UK consumer organisation, announced on 25 February that it is bringing a claim in the Competition Appeal...

Aspen pricing commitments accepted by European Commission – an outlier or the ‘new normal’?

16.02.2021

The European Commission has accepted Aspen’s commitments to reduce its prices in Europe for six cancer medicines...

Gaming firms fined for preventing cross-border sales

26.01.2021

The Bristows’ competition team comments on recent EU fines in the gaming sector for geo-blocking.

Podcast on developments relating to component-level SEP licensing

19.01.2021

Well known blog Foss Patents which focusses on intellectual property and related competition law issues has released...

New year, new CMA dominance investigation…

18.01.2021

New year, new CMA dominance investigation. Francion Brooks & Emma Mackie discuss an unusual procedural step of the...

CLIP of the month: when does strategic patenting by pharmaceutical companies become anti-competitive?

11.01.2021

“Strategic patenting should be subject to scrutiny under the rules of competition law”: this is the...

CJEU annuls Commission decision accepting Paramount commitments

22.12.2020

The ECJ has annulled the Commission’s decision accepting Paramount commitments. Find out more here.

Back to the future? Does recent case on common law restraint of trade foreshadow how UK competition law might evolve?

18.12.2020

Supreme Court ruling invites consideration of post-Brexit interpretation of restraints on competition.

A changing FRAND landscape?

11.12.2020

A changing FRAND landscape? Pat Treacy, Sophie Lawrance, and James Batsford review the CJEU's referral in German...

CMA issues guidance to government on new pro-competition regime

09.12.2020

Find out more on the CMA’s guidance to government on tech regulation proposals.

National Security and Investment Bill

02.12.2020

Find out what the UK National Security and Investment Bill means for companies in our latest article on The CLIP...

CLIP of the month: should agencies focus on the development of private permissioned blockchains?

01.12.2020

Further to our earlier blog posts on the New Competition Tool and the Digital Markets Unit, this month’s CLIP is...

Not the most favoured comparison site: CMA fines Compare The Market over contract clauses

20.11.2020

The CMA’s Compare The Market fine puts most favoured nation clauses back in the spotlight.

Pat Treacy and Naomi Hazenberg discuss the Unwired Planet Supreme Court ruling for IAM magazine

12.11.2020

The UK Supreme Court’s judgment in the combined cases of Unwired Planet v Huawei and Conversant v Huawei and ZTE...

Reform and the future of the Vertical Agreements Block Exemption

06.11.2020

Article 101(1) prohibits agreements that restrict competition unless they contribute to improving the production or...

CLIP of the month: An analysis of the CJEU’s Generics judgment

03.11.2020

This month’s CLIP is an article by Pablo Ibáñez Colomo, Professor of Law at the London School of Economics, on...

Essential Pharma’s essential drug? CMA opens investigation into withdrawal of supply of bipolar treatment

27.10.2020

On 6 October 2020, the CMA announced that it has launched an investigation into a possible abuse of a dominant...

Helicopter overview of the proposals for digital markets regulation (competition law perspective)

16.10.2020

Are the proposals for digital markets regulation going to change competition law as we know it? Pat Treacy and Elisa...

CLIP of the month: The rise in anti-suit injunctions in global FRAND disputes

09.10.2020

This month’s CLIP is an article by Jorge Contreras, Professor of law at the University of Utah, commenting on the...

CLIP of the month: Internet of Things sector inquiry

28.08.2020

This month’s CLIP is the decision of the European Commission to begin a sector inquiry for consumer Internet of...

UK Supreme Court approves global FRAND licences in Unwired Planet and Conversant appeals

26.08.2020

UK Supreme Court has just confirmed that English courts may set the terms for global FRAND licences to portfolios of...

What has FRAND got to do with TV Guides?

21.08.2020

Ofcom has revisited its existing ex ante regulatory powers in another area, the provision of on-screen TV guides...

Fortnite vs. Apple

20.08.2020

Regular CLIP Board readers may not be aware that Bristows also hosts another microsite called The Cookie Jar, full...

US Department of Justice throws its weight behind SEP holders and patent pools in FRAND disputes

31.07.2020

The debate in FRAND and competition law about licensing component suppliers rather than end manufacturers has been...

CLIP of the month: The role of competition law in addressing climate change

28.07.2020

This month’s CLIP of the month is Climate Change, Sustainability and Competition Law by Simon Holmes. While a...

The Price is Not Right: Competition authorities continue to address excessive pricing in the pharmaceutical sector

23.07.2020

Pricing issues remain a hot topic for the competition authorities, as arguably now more than ever there is a...

Simplicity or complexity? – A tale of two patent settlement investigations

13.07.2020

Competition law commentators (including this blog) have expended many words over the years on the subject of the...

Spotlight on online platforms and digital advertising as CMA calls for a new pro-competition regulation regime

09.07.2020

On 1 July 2020, the CMA published the Final Report of the 'Online Platforms and Digital Advertising' market study,...

The Court of Appeal lets the CAT out of the costs bag…

03.07.2020

On 12 May 2020 the Court of Appeal (CA) handed down its judgment on costs in the CMA v Flynn Pharma and Pfizer case....

German Supreme Court upholds BKartA Facebook remedy – we “like” our new CLIP of the Month

25.06.2020

On 23 June 2020, the German Supreme Court (the Bundesgerichtshof, or BGH) upheld the remedy imposed by a 2019...

‘Pay-for-delay’ agreements: further guidance from the Advocate General

12.06.2020

The Opinion of Advocate General Kokott in Case C-591/16 P H. Lundbeck A/S and Lundbeck Ltd v European Commission...

CLIP of the month: House Judiciary Inquiry into Competition in Digital Markets: Statement

05.06.2020

This month’s CLIP is a response by Herb Hovenkamp to the American House Judiciary Committee’s investigation into...

European Commission resurrects comfort letters to combat COVID-19

01.05.2020

Our team’s recent blog on the impact of COVID-19 on competition law in the UK pharma sector referred to the...

CLIP of the month: Could patent pools help combat coronavirus?

28.04.2020

This month’s CLIP of the month is an article by Jorge Contreras, Professor of law at the University of Utah, about...

COVID-19 and its impact on Competition Law for the UK pharma sector

14.04.2020

With COVID-19 now a global problem, the life sciences industry is facing immense pressure and unprecedented...

Disputes over FRAND licensing in the automotive sector shift up a gear

09.04.2020

A couple of years ago we wrote a number of blog posts about the complexity that the internet of things and the...

CLIP of the month: Indispensability as a test for abuse?

27.03.2020

This month’s CLIP of the month is an article (and blog) by Pablo Ibanez Colomo about the vexed question of the...

Want to navigate the FRAND landscape? Bristows launches a free online database of judgments in the English Courts

24.03.2020

We have built an online tool to track UK SEP/FRAND judgments which include interesting decisions handed down by...

French Competition Authority imposes its largest ever fine on Apple for anticompetitive practices

19.03.2020

This week, the French Competition Authority (Autorité de la Concurrence, ADLC) imposed its largest ever fine of...

Excessive? Unfair? Court of Appeal reaffirms United Brands excessive pricing test

11.03.2020

In December 2016, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) found that Pfizer and Flynn had charged...

CLIP of the month: EU Commission unveils plans for ‘digital transformation’ and AI

02.03.2020

On 19 February, the European Commission unveiled its agenda for a “digital transformation that works for all”,...

Merchandising Monsters – European Commission imposes €14.3 million fine on NBCUniversal

26.02.2020

On 30 January 2020 the European Commission announced that it was fining NBCUniversal (and other companies in the...

Transatlantic echoes: FTC and FDA focus on competition in biologics

07.02.2020

For those who don’t make a practice of reading press releases from the US regulatory bodies, a recent joint...

Competition between generics and originators – what’s the relevance of a patent? (Part II)

03.02.2020

The Judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union in the Paroxetine “pay-for-delay” litigation (Case...

CLIP of the month: A simple model of mergers and innovation

03.02.2020

This month’s CLIP is a short economic paper looking at how a merger affects incentives on the merging parties to...

Competition between generics and originators – what’s the relevance of a patent?

27.01.2020

The Paroxetine case arises from familiar circumstances and has a familiar cast of characters: a blockbuster drug;...

UK merger review developments to look for in 2020

17.01.2020

The merger landscape is notoriously hard to predict but, on the heels of a 2019 in which, according to PaRR...

Searching for trouble? Assessing the CMA report on online platforms and digital advertising

13.01.2020

On 18th December the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published its interim report ‘Online platforms and...

UK court concludes it has no jurisdiction over Vestel’s claim for FRAND determination

05.11.2019

On 21 October, the High Court gave judgment on jurisdiction in Vestel v HEVC Advance & Philips, deciding that it...

CLIP of the month: Is a new framework needed to assess antitrust risk?

28.10.2019

This month’s CLIP (available here) is a short article from Frontier Economics on proposals aimed at dealing with...

CLIP of the month: FTC v. Qualcomm on the duty to deal, price squeezes, and exclusive dealing

02.10.2019

CLIP of the month is “Section 2 Mangled: FTC v. Qualcomm on the Duty to Deal, Price Squeezes, and Exclusive...

Licensing programme terms attract Commission scrutiny

02.09.2019

Press reports last week show that the European Commission has been active in the sphere of technology licences,...

CLIP of the month: A simple model of mergers and innovation

28.08.2019

Our current CLIP of the month is ‘A simple model of mergers and innovation’ by Giulio Federico, Gregor Langus,...

CLIP of the month: focussing on the UK generics industry

30.07.2019

This month’s CLIP of the month is this Oxera report on the UK generics industry. This is an interesting...

French Competition Authority saddles Bikeurope with €250,000 fine

09.07.2019

Last week the French Competition Authority ADLC– l’Autorité de la Concurrence (ADLC)– announced fines...

Interim measures are back – Broadcom faces EC probe

01.07.2019

Key case law on the interface between competition law and IP rights emerged from the IMS Health case, some 16 years...

Killer acquisitions: the CMA and the iZettle/Paypal merger

21.06.2019

Last week the CMA announced that it had cleared Paypal’s takeover of iZettle, a rival in the mobile payments...

Killer acquisitions and data access or divestment as a merger remedy

14.05.2019

Antitrust authorities have identified ‘killer’ acquisitions as being a particular issue in the tech industry in...

New Commission interventions target geo-blocking via technical measures and blocking of innovation

12.04.2019

Within the past week, the European Commission has issued two new statements of objections on topics of interest for...

PanOptis takes on Apple, Vestel issues antitrust litigation against HEVC patent pool, injunction granted against ZyXEL

03.04.2019

The dust has not quite yet settled on the Unwired Planet litigation saga, Huawei has applied for permission to...

Just (Don’t) Do It – Commission fines Nike €12.5 million for restricting cross-border sales

02.04.2019

On 25 March the European Commission handed out a €12.5 million (£10.7 million) fine to sportswear company Nike,...

CLIP of the month: The Bundeskartellamt’s Facebook Decision and the intersection of competition law and data protection

28.03.2019

This month’s CLIP is a comment from Assistant Professor John Newman on the German Competition Authority’s (BKA)...

Final credits roll on the Hollywood movies pay-TV saga

19.03.2019

The curtain has come down on the long running Hollywood movie/pay-TV licencing saga.

Chancellor’s Spring Statement: Digital Advertising Market Study

13.03.2019

Presenting his Spring Statement this afternoon, Chancellor Philip Hammond welcomed the Furman review, an independent...

OxFirst’s Third IP and Competition Forum: Creating the Missing Link in the Digital Economy

13.02.2019

This week Bristows is sponsoring, and I have the privilege to be speaking alongside fellow Bristows partner Myles...

The General Court’s judgment in Krka – some welcome clarity over licensing in the context of patent settlements

01.02.2019

We reported on this blog about the General Court (GC)’s judgment in Servier on the day on which that judgment was...

3rd Annual W@Competition Conference

31.01.2019

For those of you with an interest in IP/tech issues, you may find the upcoming 3rd Annual W@Competition Conference...

CLIP of the month: Competition law and innovation – where do we stand?

29.01.2019

This month’s CLIP is an editorial in the Journal of European Competition Law and Practice written by leading LSE...

High Court rejects application to discharge CMA search warrant

17.01.2019

In its judgment yesterday, the High Court rejected an application by Concordia to have a CMA search warrant...

Canal+ finds copyright is no match for the EU single market

18.12.2018

The EU General Court (GC) has rejected an appeal brought by Groupe Canal+ (a French pay-TV broadcaster) against...

Partial annulment of Servier decision by the General Court – some good news for pharma innovators at last

12.12.2018

The General Court has today handed down its judgment in the long-running Servier patent settlement case. It remains...

CLIP of the month: What is the best response to higher prices in the pharma sector?

04.12.2018

Pricing issues in the pharmaceutical industry continue to keep European competition authorities busy. From the UK...

Maintaining competition in online advertising: the US FTC’s 1-800 Contacts decision

27.11.2018

In an important case on the intersection of IP and antitrust, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has held that...

US District Court confirms that Qualcomm must offer RAND SEP licences to rival chipset manufacturers

14.11.2018

In California, Judge Koh has granted partial summary judgment in favour of the FTC against Qualcomm, making...

Brexit and Competition Law: CMA publishes guidance on its role in a “no-deal” scenario

05.11.2018

On 29 October 2018, the government laid ‘The Competition (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019’ (the...

CLIP of the month: Does orphan drug pricing pose an antitrust problem?

29.10.2018

In the USA, a rare or orphan disease is defined as affecting fewer than 200,000 people and more than 7,000 rare...

Unwired Planet v Huawei: Court of Appeal upholds Birss J’s judgment

24.10.2018

The keenly awaited appeal judgment in Unwired Planet v Huawei was handed down yesterday.

SEP holders’ guidelines on IoT /5G FRAND licensing

22.10.2018

The Commission’s SEP Communication was designed to offer guidance on FRAND and SEP licensing. However, as we have...

Polish Plant Protection Products: CJEU confirms Commission was right to reject investigation

20.10.2018

In its judgment of earlier this year, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) upheld a decision of the...

Global FRAND issues unpicked in Japan Patent Office’s new licensing guidance

16.10.2018

We have previously reported on FRAND guidance from other jurisdictions outside of Europe, such as those published in...

Request to re-open Glaxo ‘dual pricing’ case rejected by General Court: The end of the road for challenges to dual pricing?

04.10.2018

Entering into agreements that erect barriers to parallel exports between EU markets is generally a high-risk...

CLIP of the month: Strengthening Buyer Power as a Solution to Platform Market Power?

02.10.2018

CLIP of the month: Strengthening Buyer Power as a Solution to Platform Market Power?

Amazon Marketplace seems to be the Commission’s next big data antitrust target

21.09.2018

Following up on our recent post about the big data concerns assessed by the Commission in the Apple/Shazam merger,...

The cartelization of innovation – a new emissions scandal?

20.09.2018

The cartelization of innovation – a new emissions scandal?

Summer FRAND developments: some big antitrust news to come

17.09.2018

Back in May this year, the Court of Appeal sat for five days to hear Huawei’s appeal of Birss J’s judgment in...

BEIS notice on competition law in the event of a ‘no deal’ Brexit

14.09.2018

With Brexit fast approaching, the government has issued further technical notices that set out its plans in the...

The Ping judgment – CAT confirms that internet sales ban is restrictive of competition ‘by object’

12.09.2018

In a judgment handed down on 7 September, the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) upheld the CMA’s decision...

Big Data? No antitrust problem for Apple/Shazam

10.09.2018

Big Data has been a focus for DG Competition for the last few years. In particular, the Commission has been...

Competition law challenge to orphan drug prices in the Netherlands

30.08.2018

Some months back, we reported on an initiative by the Dutch Council for Public Health and Society which considered...

Concordia and the CMA – a drama in (at least) three parts

14.08.2018

Last week, Concordia International released a management report in which it announced the names of six drugs...

Online advertising – Government acknowledges challenges ahead for competition law

06.08.2018

We reported a few months ago on the House of Lords Communications Select Committee’s report on advertising in...

Pharma stock management – nothing extraordinary in limiting parallel trade?

28.07.2018

Pharmaceutical stock management – the brand-owner practice of limiting quantities sold to levels required for the...

Commission considers pricing algorithms in fining consumer electronics manufacturers for RPM

27.07.2018

Last year, we speculated whether the European Commission might target pricing algorithms (here) and noted that the...

Coty gets green light for online platform ban

16.07.2018

The Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt ruled last Thursday that Coty Germany’s ban on distributors selling...

MasterCard and Visa MIFfed as the Court of Appeal considers two-sided markets, SCOTUS itself is two-sided (Part 2 – the USA)

13.07.2018

Following on from yesterday’s blog on the MasterCard / Visa decision, we’ve also taken a look at how the US is...

MasterCard and Visa MIFfed as the Court of Appeal considers two-sided markets, SCOTUS itself is two-sided (Part 1 – the UK)

12.07.2018

Whilst the Court of Appeal’s judgment in MasterCard / Visa, and the SCOTUS Opinion in AmEx may seem a little...

European Commission sets up SEP Licensing Expert Group

09.07.2018

The Commission’s November 2017 Communication on SEPs (on which we reported here) referred to the Commission’s...

Bienvenue à Bruxelles! Bristows’ Competition and Regulatory teams visit the new Continental Base

02.07.2018

Last month, the entire Competition and Regulatory departments took the opportunity to tour our new Bristows office...

CAT judgment in Pfizer/Flynn: Was the CMA ‘unfair’ in its assessment of Pfizer and Flynn’s prices?

14.06.2018

“The principal issue is excessive pricing, … the reason for our conclusion is that the judge erred in holding...

FRAND in the UK (May 2018 edition): Unwired Planet appeal, Apple v Qualcomm

24.05.2018

This week has seen the English Court of Appeal hear Huawei’s appeal of the FRAND and remedies judgments issued...

The CJEU guidance in MEO on price discrimination in licensing may also impact FRAND / SEP licences

25.04.2018

AG Wahl began his Opinion in MEO v Autoridade da Concorrência by noting that it presented the CJEU with an...

Advertising in the digital age – the future role for competition law

20.04.2018

The House of Lords Select Committee on Communications has published its final report following a wide-ranging...

‘Baysanto’: EU merger clearance of the Bayer/Monsanto confirms continued attention to innovation markets

28.03.2018

Last week, the European Commission confirmed that it had cleared the proposed merger between Bayer and Monsanto,...

Race to publish rival SEP, FRAND Codes of Conduct: new CEN-CENELEC working groups established

22.03.2018

In October last year we reported on the difficulties that the Commission was facing in drafting its Communication on...

Depression delayed: CMA’s paroxetine pay-for-delay case heads to Luxembourg

15.03.2018

On 8 March 2018, the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) gave an initial judgment in the appeals brought by...

The BKA’s Facebook investigation: new frontier or regulatory overreach?

08.03.2018

At the end of 2017, the German competition authority (BKA) provisionally concluded that certain Facebook polices in...

CLIP of the month: Competition restraints in online sales after Coty and Asics – what’s next?

28.02.2018

This month’s CLIP comes from the Bundeskartellamt’s thought-provoking series of papers on ‘Competition and...

The competition law issues of the CRISPR patent pool

16.02.2018

CRISPR-Cas9 is heralded as a revolutionary gene editing technology that is regularly hitting the headlines for both...

Excessive pricing spreads to Denmark – a cautionary tale about exclusive licensing

08.02.2018

Following cases in Italy, the UK and before the European Commission, the Danish authorities have reached an abuse of...

The chips are down! The Commission fines Qualcomm for abuse of dominance

26.01.2018

The Commission has fined Qualcomm €997 million for abuse of dominance. The Commission found that Qualcomm had paid...

Licensing commitments sufficient for Qualcomm to secure NXP takeover green light

24.01.2018

Stephen Smith and Matthew Hunt review licensing commitments sufficient for Qualcomm to secure NXP takeover green...

French competition authority fines pharma company for its anti-generic ‘commando’ sales tactics

11.01.2018

On 20 December 2017, the French competition authority, the Autorité de la Concurrence (ADLC) announced that it had...

Online sales bans in the sports equipment sector: the CMA’s Ping decision

09.01.2018

In August last year, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced that it had imposed a fine of £1.45...

USA v. UK – a united approach to FRAND? Comparing the new judgment in TCL v. Ericsson with Unwired Planet v. Huawei

08.01.2018

On 21 December 2017, Judge Selna of the US District Court for the Central District of California released...

In a froth: Trademark licensing fails to disguise anti-competitive market sharing arrangement

14.12.2017

The CMA has today issued a £1.71m fine against two laundry companies for market sharing. Micronclean Limited was...

Third-party platform bans justified for genuinely luxury brands

06.12.2017

The Court of Justice of the European Union (‘CJEU’) has today ruled that third-party platform bans may be...

Commission Communication on SEP Licensing – where has the Roadmap led?

29.11.2017

Following around a year of lobbying and intensive debate, the Commission has today (29 November 2017) published its...

Deciding on terms of privacy policies – what are the risks of anti-competitive collusion?

28.11.2017

Big data is the talk of the town in competition circles. But it is perhaps a more mundane concern which could pose...

Dutch Health Council’s proposal of compulsory licensing as solution to high pharma prices

27.11.2017

Shortly before becoming the new home of the EMA, the Netherlands piqued the interest of the pharma industry with a...

EU reaches agreement to end unjustified geoblocking

24.11.2017

On 20 November the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission reached an agreement to adopt the proposed...

French Pharma – French Competition Authority launches new sector enquiry

23.11.2017

The CMA has opened an unprecedented number of new investigations in the pharmaceutical sector in the past month,...

Economical with the truth? When providing misleading information to authorities might be an object infringement

20.11.2017

One of the more intriguing Opinions to be given by an Advocate General recently came out in late September (Case...

Product hopping: The competition law risks of launching new product formulations

14.11.2017

‘Product hopping’, or ‘evergreening’, are expressions used (by competition authorities and industry...

Introducing On the Pulse – the Bristows life sciences microsite

13.11.2017

Bristows has recently launched On the Pulse, a microsite offering legal analysis and practical tools that our life...

SEPs, 5G and the IoT: where will the Commission land on use-based licensing?

25.10.2017

In April this year we reported that the Commission had released aRoadmap towards a ‘Communication on Standard...

Laitenberger on the notions of fairness and consumer welfare in EU Competition Law

16.10.2017

Johannes Laitenberger (Director-General for Competition, European Commission) spoke last week on an increasingly...

Licensing of Latvian collecting society prompts CJEU to provide greater clarity on how to determine excessive pricing

18.09.2017

Last week the CJEU released its judgment on excessive pricing that could prove of interest to many of our readers.

The CJEU’s Intel judgment – First thoughts and some predictions

06.09.2017

Today’s Intel judgment from the Court of Justice does not strictly concern the Competition Law/IP interface....

Apple’s battle with Qualcomm spreads to the UK

01.09.2017

On 19 May 2017 Apple issued a major claim against Qualcomm in the English Court. This is part of a widely reported...

Excessive Pricing: Aspen lose their appeal in Italy – and are in the Commission’s crosshairs

07.08.2017

Last year we reported the Italian’s take on excessive pricing (here), where South African pharmaceutical Aspen was...

Innovation and merger control

10.07.2017

Sophie Lawrance explores Innovation and merger control

Luxury brands, third party platforms and EU competition law – guidance from AG Wahl

26.06.2017

The Court of Justice of the European Union (‘CJEU’) has today handed down Advocate General Wahl’s opinion in...

A FRAND torpedo? An update on Vodafone v Intellectual Ventures

24.06.2017

Patentees commonly litigate in Germany. The validity of a patent is considered separately from (generally after) any...

Antitrust authorities are increasingly interested in pricing algorithms

23.06.2017

A few months ago, we considered whether pricing algorithms might be the European Commission’s next antitrust...

Online auction commitments demonstrate digital markets are central to CMA’s priorities

11.06.2017

The CMA has accepted commitments from ATG Media, the largest provider of online auction sites in the UK, to bring an...

Unwired Planet v Huawei: a new FRAND injunction

07.06.2017

Mr Justice Birss has once again broken new legal ground by granting what he has termed a ‘FRAND injunction in...

The Commission steps into the excessive pricing arena

23.05.2017

An announcement by the European Commission last week resolves an open question about its view on the recent spate of...

Transparency may undermine online competition: Commission’s Final Report on the E-commerce Sector Inquiry

23.05.2017

On 10 May 2017 the European Commission published its Final Report on the E-commerce Sector Inquiry, together with...

Patent licensing: 5G & the Internet of Things

24.04.2017

The next telecommunications standard, 5G, and the nascent Internet of Things (IoT), promise a world of high-speed...

Unwired Planet v Huawei: Is FRAND now a competition law free zone? Not so fast…

20.04.2017

It has been two weeks since Mr Justice Birss handed down his latest judgment in Unwired Planet v Huawei (see here...

Unwired Planet v Huawei: UK High Court determines FRAND licence rate

05.04.2017

Mr Justice Birss has just handed down the first decision by a UK court on the ever controversial topic of what...

EU Commission’s Microsoft/ LinkedIn Decision – watershed for competition and data?

31.03.2017

On 6 December 2016, the European Commission approved the acquisition of LinkedIn by Microsoft, conditional on...

Will pricing algorithms be the European Commission’s next antitrust target?

21.03.2017

There has been considerable debate over the last year or so about the potential anti-competitive impacts of pricing...

Collusion in the online economy – new competition law traps for the unwary?

08.03.2017

We reported last year on the Eturas decision, in which the Court of Justice ruled that technical measures applied on...

Pay-for-delay focus on steroids

07.03.2017

At the end of last week, the CMA sent a formal statement of objections to Actavis UK and Concordia alleging that...

Back to the future: the Commission opens e-commerce competition investigations

15.02.2017

True to its current focus on all things digital, the European Commission has recently announced that it has launched...

Amazon’s E-Books antitrust saga – War now Peace?

25.01.2017

Amazon has offered commitments to the European Commission to end the antitrust investigation into its use of ‘most...

Patent licensing and antitrust – Qualcomm in the firing line

23.01.2017

Ten years after the European Commission opened an investigation into Qualcomm's royalties for 3G essential patents,...

FTC settles abusive acquisition of pharma licensing rights

23.01.2017

On 18 January, the FTC announced that Mallinckrodt ARD Inc. (formerly Questcor Pharmaceuticals, Inc.) and its parent...

Compulsory Licencing: the Brave New World for (non-personal) data in Europe?

17.01.2017

The Commission has published its Data Economy Package for non-personal data*, which is the final building block of...

A decision of Paramount importance to independent film financing…?

22.12.2016

In the latest instalment of the pay-TV saga, the French pay-TV operator Canal Plus has asked EU judges to overturn a...

The vexed question of the appropriate ‘royalty base’ for FRAND-based damages – the US Supreme Court declines to answer

15.12.2016

Apple and Samsung have been engaged in litigation in the USA since 2011 over the issue of whether various Samsung...

When the price isn’t right – CMA fines Pfizer / Flynn for excessive pricing

13.12.2016

The year is 2011. The Office of Fair Trading (the predecessor to the current Competition and Markets Authority)...

We need to talk…about Pharmaceuticals and Standard Essential Patents

07.12.2016

At the end of last month, Commissioner Vestager gave a speech at the Chillin’ Competition Conference.

Hear it here first – competition law updates…

01.12.2016

Our readers may be interested in two events next week at which Sophie Lawrance, one of Bristows’ competition...

Premier League scores in latest dispute with pub broadcasting football matches

16.11.2016

The ever-increasing amount of money tied up in TV deals for Premier League football perhaps makes it unsurprising...

High Court Rules in Article 50 Case

04.11.2016

We know it’s not strictly competition law or IP related but Competition and IP practitioners (and indeed the...

Resetting Competition Policy Frameworks

26.10.2016

Earlier this month, the GSMA – an association representing various mobile operators – published a report:...

Excessive pricing: the Italian version

19.10.2016

Pricing issues in the pharmaceutical industry have continued to keep competition authorities busy, this time with...

The European Commission’s E-commerce Conference

18.10.2016

On 6 October, the Commission held a conference on its Preliminary Findings of the E-commerce Sector Inquiry: the...

Competition defences, patent litigation and costs…

07.10.2016

A recent judgment from Mr Justice Roth in the Patents Court highlights the importance of parties considering the...

The privacy/ competition law overlap: new competition rules on big data?

03.10.2016

On Thursday 29 September, at a Conference organised by the EDPS and BEUC, Commissioner Vestager gave a speech on Big...

The privacy/ competition law overlap: co-operation between enforcement agencies?

27.09.2016

Last week, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) released an Opinion on coherent enforcement of fundamental...

Patent Licensing and the Internet of Things – a Solution?

22.09.2016

The Internet of Things (IoT) – a term used to describe the interconnectivity of electronic devices via the...

E-Commerce Sector Inquiry: Digital Content

20.09.2016

Last week, the European Commission published its Preliminary Report in the e-commerce sector inquiry. The Report...

EU Court to rule on ability of luxury brand owners to control online distribution

16.09.2016

Following a dispute in Germany between perfume and cosmetics manufacturer Coty and one of its retail distributors...

Competition and Regulation in Digital Markets

16.09.2016

On Friday 9 September 2016, I attended the International Conference on Competition and Regulation in Digital...

Connecting the DSM dots

15.09.2016

European Commission releases proposals on copyright and telecoms as part of Digital Single Market strategy Today the...

Breaking news – General Court confirms Lundbeck decision and fine

08.09.2016

The General Court of the EU has upheld the European Commission decision fining Lundbeck and a number of generic...

Proposed changes to the US Antitrust Guidelines for the Licensing of Intellectual Property – a transatlantic perspective

22.08.2016

Just over a week ago, the US Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division published...

Online poster seller in the frame for algorithm-centred price-fixing cartel

16.08.2016

Marketplace vendors had fixed prices by using and configuring “commercially-available automated repricing...

This summer’s (not so) light reading – the CMA’s published Paroxetine decision (GSK/generics)

12.08.2016

Some 6 months after issuing its infringement decision against GSK and a number of generic companies, the CMA has...

Competition policy v IP: striking a balance is a tricky exercise

05.08.2016

In this article in Competition Law Insight we consider how intellectual property rights and competition law can...

Brexit – What it means for competition law? Q&A …

28.06.2016

As the dust begins to settle on the momentous events that unfolded in the early hours of Friday 24 June, focus...

That’s a wrap! The European Commission accepts Paramount’s pay-TV commitments

27.06.2016

The European Commission announced that it has accepted the commitments offered by Paramount Pictures, which are now...

Brexit – what next? A competition law perspective

27.06.2016

What next for Brexit? Sophie Lawrance gives a perspective on competition law

FRAND in Finance

25.06.2016

The European Commission has accepted legally binding commitments from the International Swaps and Derivatives...

Testing the patent pool waters

15.06.2016

Demonstrating that life goes on outside of Brexit, the European Commission has opened an investigation into Illumina...

Vodafone v Intellectual Ventures – Is a new front about to open in the FRAND wars?

13.06.2016

When Intellectual Ventures (IV), the world’s largest non-practising entity, sued Vodafone GmbH for infringement of...

Time to modernise standards?

06.06.2016

As part of its Single Market Strategy, the Commission has announced that it will take steps to modernise the EU’s...

May Day! Competition policy: trade war by other means?

03.06.2016

May 2016 was an important month for competition policy developments. We have reviewed the three key developments...

Qualcomm in the firing line again

23.05.2016

Qualcomm, the largest manufacturer of baseband chipsets for mobile phones, has recently found itself under attack...

The Commission has seen the future and it is standardised!

12.05.2016

For those of you who are interested in standardisation, a post about action by the Commission generally, rather than...

Keeping a weather eye on competition and innovation

03.05.2016

Keeping a weather eye on competition and innovation

Recent pay-TV developments: the dawning of a new era?

27.04.2016

As part of the European Commission’s ongoing pay-TV investigation, it was announced last week that Paramount...

The CMA still has pharma and medical devices in its sights

22.04.2016

The CMA has been slowly but surely opening a raft of new investigations in the pharma and medical devices...

UPDATE: International spring cleaning time to review those IPR Guidelines

20.04.2016

The article summarises the most notable new guidance in the Canadian guidelines – namely in relation to pharma...

The NHS opens up to increased competition

18.04.2016

From today the NHS is likely to significantly increase the number of contracts it advertises for external...

A relatively rare beast: CMA clearance of a pharmaceutical sector merger

14.04.2016

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced that it has decided not to refer the acquisition by LEO...

International spring cleaning: time to review those IPR guidelines…

01.04.2016

A number of national competition agencies have recently been reviewing their IPR guidelines giving rise to some...

Competition law no bar to patent licence royalties

18.03.2016

This arose from a disputed arbitration award between Genentech and Sanofi-Aventis, and followed a reference to the...

Digital Single Market – geo-blocking of digital content

18.03.2016

The Competition Commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, has today published her initial findings on geo-blocking, as part...

A week of standard setting conferences – Part II, the London Leg

03.03.2016

Following up on Sophie’s recent blog, it was my pleasure to be the Bristows’ attendee at the second of this...

A week of standard setting conferences – part 1: FRAND, hold-up and other mythical creatures

01.03.2016

The context for the first of two standards-related conferences this week was the launch of the Liege Competition and...

Standards, standards everywhere

29.02.2016

Two conferences take place this week on the ever-hot topic of standards, SEPs and FRAND licensing – today in...

New technology and competition law – mapping the way

26.02.2016

In a recent judgment, the High Court recognised that the rapid development of new products and services online...

Algorithmic agony? The perils of platform T&Cs

22.02.2016

The rise of machine learning gives rise to knotty legal problems, whether these relate to how the law applies to...

CMA’s mood boosted over fines for anti-depressant

12.02.2016

The CMA has fined a number of pharmaceutical companies, including GSK, for anti-competitive conduct and agreements...

The Commission’s consultation on the IP Enforcement Directive – a competition as well as an IP issue

08.02.2016

In December 2015, the European Commission launched a public consultation on whether Directive 2004/48/EC on the...

Germany’s competition probe into Facebook’s T&Cs, precedent or outlier?

04.02.2016

The German Competition Authority (BKA) has opened an investigation into Facebook “on suspicion of having abused...

The Commission’s 2016 Competition Enforcement Priorities: the Digital Economy and Standard Essential Patents

03.02.2016

Margrethe Vestager, the European Competition Commissioner, has set out DG Competition’s enforcement priorities for...

Why a Spanish state aid decision is making EU governments nervous

22.01.2016

In an expansion of our usual repertoire, this post is taking a quick look at the relationship between EU state aid...

Is ‘big data’ the new frontier for competition law?

20.01.2016

Margrethe Vestager, EU Competition Commissioner, addressed Munich’s zeitgeist-setting Digital Life Design (DLD)...

Loyal to investigating pharma product discounts? – New CMA investigation

21.12.2015

The Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) has recently opened a new investigation into product discounts in...

New industry coalition established to promote FRAND licensing

10.12.2015

The licensing of standard essential patents ("SEPs") on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory ("FRAND") terms....

US Court guidance on principles to apply for RAND royalty calculations

10.12.2015

In a useful addition to the pool of incremental guidance on RAND royalties, the US Court of Appeal for the Federal...

6th Report on the Monitoring of Patents Settlements – déjà vu?

09.12.2015

Last week the Commission published its 6th report on the monitoring of patent settlements, exploring the use of such...

Approaches to Drugs Going Off-Patent: Naughty or NICE?

02.12.2015

Last month the CMA published its evaluation of the OFT’s 2011 decision concerning Reckitt Benckiser’s withdrawal...

#EUhaveyoursay

26.11.2015

"The Internet is the oxygen of our digital economy and society. We are more and more connected, at every moment,...

Analogue taxis and hotels beware! The EU Internal Market Strategy is published

12.11.2015

The Commission has published its new internal market strategy. The areas that are likely to be of particular...

CMA investigates pharmaceutical sector pricing issues

05.11.2015

On 26 June 2015, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced the closure of its year-long investigation...

Nokia / Alcatel-Lucent’s SEP portfolio: A tale of two mergers

02.11.2015

In the past few months, Nokia’s acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent has been approved by the EU (Case M.7632, decided 24...

Huawei v ZTE – three months on

29.10.2015

Three months have gone by since the Huawei v ZTE judgment. Having considered the judgment on behalf of both...

Online platforms hold on tight

20.10.2015

Geo-blocking and online platforms are the next dip in the roller-coaster that is the e-commerce sector enquiry -...

“Everything online” including “everything copyright”

15.10.2015

On 9 October 2015, the European Commission published its clearance decision in relation to the joint venture between...

Competition law as panacea for high prices?

12.10.2015

It seems that the CMA's opening of an investigation into Pfizer / Flynn may not be the only pending competition case...

Huawei may not be the end of the story

15.09.2015

On 11 September 2015 the Antitrust Commissioner Margrethe Vestager announced in a speech at the 19th IBA Conference...

No rest for the Commission

08.09.2015

Over the past few weeks DG Comp has continued to send information requests to numerous stakeholders in the digital...

Interested in competition law developments in the pharma sector…?

04.09.2015

If you are interested in competition law developments in the pharma sector, it’s still not too late to register...

Flynn, Pfizer and Pharma in the Frame

27.08.2015

Whilst the European Commission has shifted its focus to e-commerce and all things digital (see here, here, here and...

Product-hopping prohibited – Actavis’s most recent brush with US antitrust

18.08.2015

Interim mandatory relief to compel a company to continue doing something it wanted to stop doing is one of the more...

Digital markets, DG Comp’s policy on data / privacy and some crystal-ball gazing

06.08.2015

A perhaps under-publicised resource on DG Comp’s website are its periodic Competition Policy Newsletters and...

Geo-blocking and the Single Digital Market: a new statement of objections

31.07.2015

Last week, the European Commission made concrete moves which it thinks will help it to deliver on its promise to...

CJEU judgment in Huawei v ZTE (Case C-130/13): theory and practice (2: Practice)

27.07.2015

This is the second of two related posts looking at the recent CJEU ruling in Huawei v. ZTE. In the first post, I...

CJEU judgment in Huawei v ZTE (Case C-130/13): theory and practice (1: Theory)

27.07.2015

Judicial desk-clearing at the Court of Justice before the 2015 summer recess included the handing down of judgment...

The unseen risks of e-commerce – a timely AG opinion on technical measures for breaching the competition rules

22.07.2015

Those interested in all things e-commerce and competition will want to keep an eye out for the Court of Justice's...

A sympathetic Australian approach to life cycle management and recent CMA guidance on Pharma sector rebates

16.07.2015

Our new CLIP of the month comes from one of the antitrust blogs recommended on our sidebar. A guest contributor on...

The e-Commerce sector inquiry gets under way

15.07.2015

Yesterday evening, together with a few colleagues, I attended a seminar on the European Commission’s...

Non-challenging times…

11.06.2015

I had the privilege last week of taking part in a conference on the subject of Litigation and Settlements in Patent...

Try before you buy: pre-action disclosure of licences

29.04.2015

In a novel judgment handed down yesterday, Arnold J granted an application for pre-action disclosure of certain...

European Commission announces e-commerce sector inquiry

23.04.2015

Everything Online is the focus of the European Commission’s latest sector inquiry announced on 26 March 2015. This...

New DG Connect Guidelines on interoperability information – shedding some light on the vexed question of IP valuation

10.04.2015

Last year, I had the opportunity to contribute in a small way to an interesting project organised by DG Connect...

UK Supreme Court ruling on standard of review for CAT appeals in 08x numbers case

02.04.2015

A rare foray by the UK Supreme Court into telecoms regulation provides a fascinating insight into the standard of...

Enacted: Consumer Rights Act 2015

30.03.2015

On 26 March the Consumer Rights Act 2015 was enacted.

Sticky switching opens the way to over-stickering

12.03.2015

Lord Justice Floyd has had occasion recently to remind us of the re-packaging/re-labelling rules in a recent Court...

German Federal Cartel Office (FCO) decision in HRS (online hotel booking)

02.03.2015

Following Avantika’s excellent post on “most favoured nation” or “MFN” clauses, we’ve decided to...

Fast track CAT injunctions – have your say on the draft rules

26.02.2015

6 February saw a new consultation on a draft set of new rules of procedure for the Competition Appeal Tribunal...

The published Lundbeck decision – first impressions (with some facts, a little law and three remarkable points)

23.02.2015

Over a year and a half after it was decided (a delay which this blog has bemoaned in the past), the Commission last...

Companies ShrIEEEk at new SSO bylaws

19.02.2015

BOLD FRAND statements seem to be the order of the year. The IEEE Board of Governorshas just approved its new...

Warner-Lambert/Actavis – Competition Law Insights

02.02.2015

Competition lawyers could be forgiven for raising a quizzical eyebrow at the judgment handed down by the Arnold J...

(Bio-)Similar views?

19.01.2015

Towards the end of last year, I contributed a couple of articles to Bristows’ Biotech Review publication. One...

Chinese MIIT identifies basis for a FRAND royalty rate

15.01.2015

An intervention from a little further afield than the recent US and EU rumblings on FRAND licensing and competition...

Resolutions for innovation in 2015

07.01.2015

This blog on the competition law/IP Interface has had an interest in how competition interventions may impact on...

The Commission’s 5th report on patent settlements – a pretty picture?

24.12.2014

Earlier this month the Commission published its 5th report on the monitoring of patent settlements, looking at those...

SEPs and FRAND: The calculation of RAND royalties in the US – incremental guidance

16.12.2014

The recent Judgment of the US Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit (‘CAFC’) in Ericsson v DLink addresses an...

With great patents, there must come great restraint (but a bit less in the EU than the US)

05.12.2014

In a first superhero-related post on this blog, we note with interest that the US per se rule against post-term...

Most-favoured-nation clauses in e-commerce: a guest economist’s view!

28.11.2014

The CLIP Board is delighted to welcome its first guest blog post, which has been kindly written by Dr Avantika...

The politics of SEPs – finding the third way to obtain/avoid injunctive relief?

21.11.2014

The IP/competition interface was in the spotlight at the Court of Justice yesterday. The opinion of the Advocate...

A barrel of laughs…..

21.11.2014

While this blog usually grapples with serious matters relating to the interrelationship between Intellectual...

STOP PRESS – AG Opinion in Huawei v ZTE published today

20.11.2014

The Court of Justice of the European Union (‘CJEU’) has this morning published Advocate General Wathelet’s...

Europe’s Unitary Patent system draws one step nearer…

19.11.2014

Yesterday, Advocate General Bot delivered two opinions giving the thumbs up to the proposed Unitary Patent system....

A (belated) Happy Standards Day!

22.10.2014

14 October marked World Standards Day, to celebrate the role of standards in developing harmonisation and...

Indian competition authority gets in on the IP action

17.10.2014

We’ve mentioned a few times on the blog the increasing global convergence of antitrust agencies, especially in the...

Commission Decision to increase cooperation with Member States on IP

06.10.2014

On 16 September 2014, the Commission published a decision to establish a group of experts on the enforcement of IP...

Non-challenging reading for the weekend

26.09.2014

It has been a little while since we have published on the Technology Transfer Block Exemption on this blog (our last...

Huawei v ZTE: will the CJEU be first past the post on SEP policy….?

23.09.2014

The Huawei v ZTE CJEU (C-170/13) oral hearing took place on 11 September 2014.

The CJEU serves up a little common sense in Cartes Bancaires?

15.09.2014

Sophie blogged a wee* while ago on the Opinion of AG Wahl in Cartes Bancaires, of interest because it discussed the...

“…hard cases make bad law …” – round table discussion on Intellectual Property and Competition

11.09.2014

As you may have gathered by now, on this blog we are a little obsessed by the topic of Intellectual Property and how...

Nespresso finalises its competition commitments in France – but at what price for innovation?

10.09.2014

I wrote on this blog (here) about commitments offered by Nespresso to the French Competition Authority (FCA) a few...

Innovation and Intellectual Property – a controversy?”

05.09.2014

Earlier this year I posted a blog relating to competition innovation and intellectual property rights. One of the...

Brazil joins the ‘pay-for-delay’ party

29.08.2014

Many of our pharma-themed blog posts have focused on the actions that European and US regulators have been taking in...

The CMA’s plan for IP

11.08.2014

On 1 April 2014, on the first day of its operation, the CMA published its Annual Plan 2014/15. At the end of July,...

Year of the Phoenix (aka EU/US competition cases reigniting in China)

06.08.2014

2007-09: European Commission investigates Qualcomm for possible abuse of a dominant position in relation to...

‘Care’-ful with know-how and trade marks

23.07.2014

Recent developments (in particular the Motorola / Samsung decisions relating to the use of standard essential...

Competition, innovation and DG Comp – in the mainstream press (or at least the Wall Street Journal)

09.07.2014

Some of you may remember that a couple of months ago I posted on this blog some thoughts about how competition...

Fast track CAT injunctions

26.06.2014

Earlier this month, I attended an interesting lecture at the Law Society given by Mr Justice Roth, President of the...

ZTE files competition complaint against Vringo with the European Commission

20.06.2014

ZTE has this week announced that it has made a formal competition complaint to the European Commission, asking it...

Competition law issues in commercial contracts

04.06.2014

Rosemary Choueka recently recorded a webinar on general competition law issues in commercial contracts.

Bifurcation at the UPC – competition policy squeezes and the scope for trolls

02.06.2014

Patent litigation practitioners in the courts of England & Wales are not generally known for their love of...

Competition law & IP licensing agreements

22.05.2014

Following on from yesterday’s post, I recently recorded another webinar for MBL which will be streamed live from...

Recent developments in the TMT sector and competition law

21.05.2014

For those of you interested in having an overview of recent developments relating to the TMT sector and competition...

Reckitt Benckiser reduces its competition law heartache in the UK / takes some of its own medicine

19.05.2014

Reckitt Benckiser has agreed to settle some more of the follow on claims it is facing since being fined by the OFT...

The revised technology transfer regime: is there more to patents than their validity?

08.05.2014

Reviewing the new TTBER and accompanying Guidelines in their first week in effect, two of us ended up having...

“Technological predation” – part II

24.04.2014

It seems that my recent post on “predatory technology / innovation” has touched a nerve.

Another collecting society has competition law concerns…

17.04.2014

Further to recent ramblings on the ‘Czech Spa’ case, I thought I’d quickly mention another collecting society...

Predatory technology – a viable antitrust concept?

14.04.2014

A case announced in the US earlier this month could have been designed to tick as many 'topical' boxes as possible,...

Online advertising restrictions in the spotlight again

03.04.2014

Following on from the Roma-branded Mobility Scooters case earlier this year, the OFT has announced a second decision...

University spin-out merger decision: lessons to be learned

02.04.2014

University spin-out merger decision: lessons to be learned

Object restrictions on the menu

28.03.2014

Many AG opinions are just a forgettable ‘entremet’ between the General Court hors d’oeuvre and the main course...

US judge questions illegality of seeking an injunction

27.03.2014

The FTC Commissioner Wright’s viewpoint has recently been echoed by Paul Michel, a former chief judge of the...

BREAKING NEWS – New EU Technology Transfer Regulation and Guidelines

21.03.2014

The European Commission has announced that it has adopted a revised technology transfer block exemption regulation...

Pay-for-delay: an article on recent-ish developments

19.03.2014

Those of you who are following developments in the Commission’s ‘pay-for-delay’ investigations may find my...

The FRAND debate: is the tide turning?

18.03.2014

The outspoken FTC Commissioner, Joshua D. Wright, recently made a speech where he spoke out against the FTC’s...

Collusion in the standard-setting context – are we likely to see claims in the EU?

17.03.2014

I was interested to read elsewhere in the blogosphere about a current US antitrust case concerning the selection of...

Five interesting things you might not have spotted about Case C-351/12, OSA (AKA the “Czech Spa” case)

12.03.2014

A Czech spa provided guests with music, but without having entered into a licence with the Czech collecting society,...

Competition, innovation and IP – a modest proposal

28.02.2014

Competition, innovation and IP – a modest proposal

Divisive divisionals – more on the Consiglio di Stato Pfizer judgment

26.02.2014

Courtesy of our friend Daniela Ampollini of Trevisan Cuonzo, we have now seen an unofficial translation of the...

Global convergence on pharma deals close to patent expiry

20.02.2014

I have noticed a couple of recent developments which seem indicative of increasing global convergence on conduct...

Consiglio di Stato reinstates Pfizer €10.7 million Xalatan/latanoprost fine

19.02.2014

Those of you following this case might be interested to read this post by Daniela Ampollini of Trevisan &...

Teva/Cephalon merger decision – no reason to nod off

18.02.2014

Sophie Lawrance explores Teva / Cephalon merger decision – no reason to nod off.

HTC v Nokia (UK) – no case for exhaustion….

17.02.2014

The patent dispute between HTC and Nokia (which recently settled - days before the ITC was due to rule on the first...

Technology licensing: adapting to the EU’s new regime – update

14.02.2014

Last night, we held our eagerly awaited roundtable discussion: “Technology licensing: adapting to the EU’s...

Last orders at the OFT…..

13.02.2014

Of particular interest to us UK based competition lawyers, today is the last day of trading for the UK’s Office of...

Elevated liability for cartelists?

31.01.2014

On 30 January 2014 Advocate-General Kolkott delivered her opinion in Kone AG and Others (C-557/12).

“Les génériques dangereuses”: denigration and other recent pharma sector competition issues in France

31.01.2014

Last year the French Competition Authority (FCA) issued a decision fining Sanofi-Aventis for abusing a dominant...

Smart tactics in the smartphone war?

30.01.2014

Google bought Motorola in 2012 and paid an astounding $12.5 billion. At the time of sale, Motorola had $3 billion of...

Actavis leaves scope for dissent

30.01.2014

I noted with interest that the long-standing differences of opinion between US District Courts about the antitrust...

Litigation update

24.01.2014

Companies in sectors where IP and innovation are important often find themselves embroiled in litigation – and...

Reckitt Benckiser still suffering competition law heartache in the UK

17.01.2014

In 2010, the OFT fined Reckitt Benckiser £10.2 million for abusing a dominant position, following an investigation...

Developments in the CC’s private healthcare market investigation in the UK

16.01.2014

The Competition Commission (CC) today published its provisional decision on remedies to address features of the...

The OFT tackles restrictions on the online availability of medical devices

14.01.2014

In August 2013, the OFT issued its decision in the Roma-branded Mobility Scooters case. This arose from an OFT...

Territorial licensing in the spotlight (again)

13.01.2014

The European Commission announced today that it has launched a formal antitrust investigation into cross-border...

New paper on ‘Injunctions for FRAND-pledged SEPs: the quest for an appropriate test of abuse under Article 102’

13.01.2014

For those particularly interested in the current industry debate about when it can be abusive to seek injunctions...

Practice notes to note …

07.01.2014

The team has written practice notes which explore some of the complexities that IP create for competition law, the...

Online (r)evolution: Bosch boshed by the Bundeskartellamt

06.01.2014

Following on from Pat Treacy’s post, the German competition authority on 23 December closed its investigation...

On line (r)evolution? The prospects for selective distribution in an internet future

20.12.2013

The application of competition law to online distribution models has been something of a theme for several...

French Competition Authority fines Schering-Plough for abuse of dominant position

19.12.2013

The pharmaceutical sector has been the subject of considerable scrutiny in France following the initiation of a...

Find a Patent: Intellectual Venture’s searchable portfolio

18.12.2013

Intellectual Ventures – arguably the world’s most infamous NPE with around 70,000 IP assets – has developed...

CC investigation: private motor insurance & MFNs

17.12.2013

E-commerce businesses, motor-related or otherwise, should take a look at the discussion of MFN clauses in the...

A step closer to consensus on the availability of injunctive relief for an SEP?

13.12.2013

The ever controversial issue of the availability of injunctive relief for FRAND-encumbered SEPs took centre stage at...

The General Court dismissed appeal against Commission’s approval of Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype

12.12.2013

The General Court dismissed appeal against Commission’s approval of Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype, Sophie...

Tough times ahead for patent trolls in the US as Innovation Act is passed by House of Representatives

11.12.2013

On 5 December 2013, the US House of Representatives passed the Innovation Act (otherwise known as the Goodlatte...

The 4th Patent Settlement Monitoring Report – what’s new and what’s not?

10.12.2013

The 4th annual report on the Commission’s pharma patent monitoring exercise

Almunia’s speech

09.12.2013

Competition policy and its relationship with IP is the regulators’ topic of the moment. EU Commissioner Almunia...

How efficient is the Commission at making decisions under Article 101 (3)?

06.12.2013

Prof Whish gave a typically well-argued presentation designed to provoke the rehabilitation of Article 101(3) as a...

Commission turns its attention to online sales

06.12.2013

In November 2013, Commissioner Almunia delivered a speech at the London School of Economics entitled “Competition...

Another front in the telecoms ‘patent wars’: a novel type of antitrust complaint

06.12.2013

An NPE, Cascades, has accused a group of handset manufacturers of entering into a collective ‘boycott’...

The Commission clears Microsoft/Nokia merger

06.12.2013

The European Commission unconditionally cleared the proposed purchase of Nokia’s smartphone arm by Microsoft. It...

IBC Standards and Patents conference

05.12.2013

At the IBC Standards and Patent Conference in London on Wednesday (4 December) there were heated debates about FRAND...

China has its say in the global F/RAND and SEP licensing debate

03.12.2013

A recent Chinese appeal court’s ruling is likely to have made quite an impression on those responsible for the...

EU authorities coordinate in bringing investigations against Amazon to a close

03.12.2013

Given all that’s been happening on the competition/IP interface in recent months (and the aversion of most...

High Court grants injunctions against Barclays in a non-FRAND competition case

05.11.2013

On 5 November, the High Court granted injunctions against Barclays in two curious cases concerning ‘refusals to...

Virgin v Zodiac – what implications for the pharma sector?

31.10.2013

Could the Supreme Court’s judgment lead to preliminary injunctions becoming a routine feature of UK litigation? An...

Here cometh the CMA …

30.10.2013

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is now up and running, albeit in ‘shadow form’, and will...

Alleged refusal to supply – when are measures against parallel trade abusive?

30.10.2013

A recent High Court decision clarifies the circumstances in which the Court will compel pharmaceutical companies to...

Every little bit helps: with luck, the new groceries code adjudicator will effect real change

15.10.2013

As the traditional quartet of the local butcher, baker, candlestick maker greengrocer and fishmonger has given way...

US eBooks judgment: a view from across the Atlantic

17.09.2013

In July 2013, District Court Judge Denise Cote handed down a detailed judgment finding that Apple had conspired with...

Maximising privilege in competition law matters

31.05.2013

Pat Treacy discusses competition law issues …