Posts Tagged: "Department of Justice"

Antitrust and Patents: A Conversation with Makan Delrahim

Last week, as a part of the Virtual Patent Masters™ Program hosted by IPWatchdog, I had the opportunity to interview Makan Delrahim, who is Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). During his tenure at the Antitrust Division, AAG Delrahim has moved the policy of the federal government in a direction that is viewed as being more friendly to patent owners and innovators. For example, in December 2018, Delrahim indicated that the Antitrust Division was withdrawing its assent to the to the 2013 joint DOJ-U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Policy Statement on Remedies for Standards-Essential Patents Subject to Voluntary F/RAND Commitments (the 2013 Joint Policy Statement) during remarks delivered at the 19th Annual Berkeley-Stanford Advanced Patent Law Institute. It was the Delrahim’s view that patent remedies shouldn’t be unilaterally unavailable for one category of patent simply because the patent owner may be subject to an obligation to engage in fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory negotiations with implementers.

Clearing Up Confusion on SEPs: A Line-by-Line Response to a Problematic Essay

I recently became frustrated after reading an essay in the AIPLA newsletter by an attorney with Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP on the topic of the new USPTO-DOJ-NIST Joint Policy Statement on Remedies for Standards-Essential Patents Subject to Voluntary F/RAND Commitments. I have seldom seen a writing where I disagree with everything a man writes, with the exception of a joke and his name. I took it apart paragraph by paragraph; my comments follow in red, while the author’s original text is in black.

Netlist Wins ITC Exclusion Order: Will the USPTO Support It?

Several weeks ago, the International Trade Commission (ITC) announced that Chief Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) Charles Bullock issued a Notice of Initial Final Determination recommending that certain memory modules manufactured and imported by SK Hynix, Inc. and its subsidiaries should be excluded from importation into the United States. As is common with these announcements, the ITC first released a one-page indication of the decision, which was followed by the redacted full decision once the parties had an opportunity to request redaction of trade secrets and confidential information. The full decision has now been released, and the ITC is asking for comments relating to public interest issues from the parties, interested persons, and other government agencies and departments.

Delrahim, Simons Caution House Subcommittee Against Drawing Bright Lines on Antitrust Enforcement of Big Tech

The House Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law yesterday heard from Joseph Simons, Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, and Makan Delrahim, Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division as part of the Subcommittee’s fourth hearing in its “Online Platforms and Market Power” series. The latest hearing focused on the perspectives of the antitrust authorities, while previous hearings have examined the effects of the big tech companies on innovation and entrepreneurship; online platforms’ effect on a free and diverse press; and the role of data and privacy in competition. While both Delrahim and Simons said they are aggressively investigating and monitoring dominant platforms like Facebook and Google, they warned against overreach. Subcommittee Chair David Cicilline (D-RI) expressed his concern that, over the past decade, the largest tech firms have acquired more than 436 companies, “many of which were actual or potential competitors,” without intervention from antitrust enforcement authorities. The last major monopolization case was brought in 2001 against Microsoft, Cicilline noted. “This has created a de facto antitrust exemption for online platforms.,” he said, questioning whether the failure lies in the need for congressional action to amend and strengthen existing laws, a lack of agency resources to effectively combat the problem, or simply a lack of will to enforce the laws on the books.

Tillis and Coons Nudge DOJ to Provide Revised Joint Statement on SEPs

Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Chris Coons (D-DE), Chair and Ranking Member, respectively, of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, sent a letter on October 21 to U.S. Attorney General William Barr and Assistant U.S. Attorney General, Antitrust Division, Makan Delrahim, asking them to “work with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to provide guidance on remedies for infringement of standard-essential patents (SEPs) subject to fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) licensing commitments.” Tillis and Coons applauded the Department of Justice (DOJ), Antitrust Division’s decision to withdraw from the 2013 joint DOJ-U.S. Patent and Trademark Office “Policy Statement on Remedies for Standards-Essential Patents Subject to Voluntary F/RAND Commitments,” but expressed concerns over a “growing divide” among the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the USPTO about the role of antitrust law in policing SEPs.