Wednesday, September 29, 2010

WIPO's Medium Term Strategic Plan 2010-15

Here.
Concerning the SCCR, strategies include:

               "continuing to support the work of Member States on copyright limitations and exceptions, with a particular focus on improving access for visually impaired and other persons with print disabilities, while accelerating work with respect to access for persons with other disabilities, educational institutions, libraries and archives;

                continuing to support the work of Member States on the protection of audiovisual performances and on the protection of broadcasting organizations;

                exploring the scope for discussion of new issues with important global consequences, such as orphan works or the need for increased cooperation between copyright owners and Internet intermediaries in the making available of legitimate creative content, and encouraging consideration of self-regulatory, as well as formal solutions".

Using Competition Law to Promote Access to Knowledge

Sean Flynn, here.

Monday, September 27, 2010

(American) Football, Copyright, and Innovation

NYT, here.

Copyright law needs a digital-age upgrade

Pamela Samuelson, here, and by the same author et al.  THE COPYRIGHT PRINCIPLES PROJECT: DIRECTIONS FOR REFORM

Derechos de retransmisión de acontecimientos futbolísticos en España

Apertura de un expediente sancionador por posibles prácticas restrictivas de la competencia, por vincular la reventa de derechos de retransmisión de acontecimientos futbolísticos a la contratación de los servicios de producción y transporte de la señal de partidos de fútbol, Comunicado de Prensa.

Competition for High Tech Employees

US JUSTICE DEPARTMENT REQUIRES SIX HIGH TECH COMPANIES TO STOP
ENTERING INTO ANTICOMPETITIVE EMPLOYEE
SOLICITATION AGREEMENTS, Press Release.

Koexistenz, keine Konkurrenz: Gedruckte Bücher und E-Books ergänzen sich

Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels, hier.

EU Commission's Statement on Apple's iPhone policy changes

Google Suggest : le directeur de la publication condamné pour diffamation

TGI de Paris, 8 septembre 2010, ici

Friday, September 17, 2010

Antitrust in the Digital Age: How Enduring Competition Principles Enforced by the Federal Trade Commission Apply to Today’s Dynamic Marketplace

Richard Feinstein, FTC, here.

Open Source and Merger Policy: Insights from the EU Oracle/Sun Decision

Simonetta Vezzoso (this blog's author), hereInternational Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law (IIC), Forthcoming.

Abstract:

In Europe the merger between Oracle and Sun raised a series of substantial competition concerns, especially related to the acquisition by Oracle of MySQL, an open source business, and its impact on the database market. In the end, the acquisition was unconditionally cleared by the Commission. The open source nature of MySQL played a decisive role in the competition assessment of the merger conducted by the European competition authority according to the "significant impediment to effective competition" legal test. In this Article we will review the Commission’s decision with the specific aim of determining to what extent the open source nature of MySQL’s business model actually affected the scrutiny of Sun’s acquisition by Oracle under the relevant test. In particular, it will be questioned whether Oracle’s public announcement concerning its future behaviour on the database and related markets can be expected to duly address the concerns voiced by the Commission in the course of the merger proceedings. We will conclude that Judge Easterbrook’s much quoted conclusion that «[t]he GPL and open-source software have nothing to fear from the antitrust laws» may possibly need some qualification.


Content:

I. Introduction
II. The EU Oracle/Sun Merger Decision
1. The legal background
2. The SIEC test in the context of the Oracle/Sun case
3. The SIEC test and MySQL’s open source nature
III. The competition assessment of open source in the context of merger policy: in search of a
balanced approach
IV. Conclusion

Thursday, September 16, 2010

EU Stakeholders Dialogue Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on access to works by people with print disabilities

Here. See also the EU Commission's press release (thanks to Antonella De Robbio for pointing it to me).

UK Joint Merger Assessment Guidelines Released

From the Press Release: "The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) and Competition Commission (CC) have today for the first time published joint Merger Assessment Guidelines (...) The publication revises and expands guidance previously contained in several publications issued separately by the two Authorities after the introduction of the Enterprise Act 2002".

When Do Generics Challenge Drug Patents?

C. Scott Hemphill and Bhaven N. Sampat, here.

Competition in the Evolving Digital Marketplace

US House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Courts and Competition PolicyThursday 9/16/2010.


Written testimonies:
Richard Feinstein (Federal Trade Commission), here.
Geoffrey A. Manne (LEWIS & CLARK LAW SCHOOL),  here
Edward J. Black (Computer and Communications Industry Association), here.
Mark Cooper (Consumer Federation of America), here
Morgan Reed (Association for Competitive Technology), here
Scott Cleland (Precursor LLC), here.

Monday, September 06, 2010

ACTA's draft agreement (reflecting August 2010 changes)

From KEI, here.

Antitrust Formalism is Dead! Long Live Antitrust Formalism!: Some Implications of American Needle v. NFL

Judd E. Stone II, Joshua D. Wright, here.

WIPO Seminar Series on “The Economics of Intellectual Property”: Hal Varian (Google) on Copyright and Transaction Costs

Program, Geneva, September 14, 2010. Presentation and Video of the Seminar.

Thwack!! Take That, User-Generated Content!: Marvel Enterprises v. NCSoft

Carl Michael Szabo, here.

Revenue Streams and Safe Harbors: How Water Law Suggests a Solution to Copyright's Orphan Works Problem

Joel Sage, here.

A Peek Behind the Curtain of the Texas Antitrust Complaints against Google

Groklaw, here.

Rachat par la coopérative agricole Sodiaal du groupe Entremont autorisé

D'après le Communiqué "Avec l'acquisition du groupe Entremont, Sodiaal deviendra le numéro 2 sur le marché de la collecte de lait en France, derrière le groupe Lactalis. Les fournisseurs auxquels cette coopérative fera face sur ce marché seront cependant ses propres adhérents et l'Autorité a rappelé que ce contexte assurait un équilibre des relations entre vendeurs et acheteur, les éleveurs bénéficiant de leur position de sociétaires et de la sécurisation de leurs débouchés."