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Essay Instructions: Antitrust Laws and Competition in the Health Care Market
I. Best Practices
a. Regulated vs. Non-regulated control?
b. Cost saving or cost increasing?
II. Benchmarking
a. US regulations compared to other countries
b. Advantages vs. Disadvantages
III. Statistics
a. Impact on industry
b. Impact on the consumer
IV. Future Funding Strategies
a. Continued effects on domestic economy
Conclusion

Essay Instructions: Antitrust Claims

Prepare a two to three page paper, following the APA guidelines, detailing the antitrust claims faced by the Microsoft corporation as detailed in the above websites (see Required Readings for this week). Please provide an analysis of your own opinion about the charges levied against Microsoft. Do you believe that the charges were valid, or was Microsoft merely acting aggressively as capitalistic businesses are required to act in order to excel? You are encouraged to seek out scholarly articles and appropriate websites to support your position.

Essay Instructions: ANTITRUST



Anderson, Rod W. & Johnson, Ronald N. (1999) Antitrust and Sales-Below-Cost Laws: The Case of Retail Gasoline Review of Industrial Organization; 14 (3) May. pg. 189ff (pdf) examines whether or not gasoline pricing is in restraint of trade.
Read though the article and make a list of terms that you may not understand such as 'restraint of trade' and 'antitrust.' Then using a legal dictionary such as http://dictionary.law.com/ or http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/ look up 'restraint of trade' and the other terms with which you may not be familiar. In the process of examining the law that applies in this article, you will encounter reference to the antitrust laws such as the Sherman Act, Clayton Act and the Robinson-Patman (the enabling legislation for the Federal Trade Commission).



Now, read, examine, and evaluate the background information. And using the Internet and your cyber-library; read, examine, and evaluate any other information you might find that is relevant to the case you will build.



You are now ready to answer the following question in a four-page paper:
1. What are antitrust laws and what are the public policy considerations for such regulations.

"Public policy considerations" are the broad societal considerations that would lead a legislature or a court to make a particular decision in the way it did.

1. Does selling gasoline for less than cost violate the law? If so, which law does it violate and why does it violate that law? If not, why doesn't it violate any laws?

What can small businesses do, if anything, to compete with larger businesses if not allowed to price-fix or sell below cost?

Essay Instructions: A discussion about the law in USA regarding the types of Antitrust remedies for market leaders in intellectual property (IP) cases. Specifically, is compulsory licensing ever appropriate?

It should include
1. An intro and overview of antitrust and IP; the judicial systems ability to deal with it, using Google case as an example
2. The history of antitrust; the social roots regarding antitrust and patent/copyright protection in the liberal eighteenth century, competition as a constitutional principle, the economics of the "first amendment free market", and the origin of IP laws
3. The Sherman and Clayton Acts; enforcement of antitrust laws, types of offenses, consumer harm as the ultimate focus, distinctions b/w pro-competitive and anticompetitive behavior, what regulation of IP is permissible, liability from mere ownership of IP
4. Monopoly and MArket Power; defining markets, the effect of the size of a company (are judgments different with respect to market-dominant companies?) How different courts have balanced competition and IP interest and is there an exception for bigness --- some cases to use are; eastman kodak v image technical service, ftc v intel, intergraph v intel
5. more cases regarding monopoly and exclusionary conduct due to the size of the company, i.e the concept of essential facilities and leverage --- alcoa steel, cellophane, and grinnell, microsoft, trinko
6. Fundamental IP principals with the movie industry as a case study; constitutional basis, time period, and the purpose of the patent and copyright grants, trademarks being forever, how patents promote competition, the rights to exclude others, and the balance between promoting innovation and protecting competition
7. issues of petitioning government and first amendment in antitrust and IP; fraud on competitors and the patent office. some cases to use -- in re dell (fraud on competitors), ftc v unocal (fraud on govt), kennedy concurrence win ebay, cases on noer-pennigton doctrine, viacom v youtube
8. the ideas behind compulsory licensing as a remedy