Southern District of New York Judge P. Kevin Castel dismissed a class action complaint against the sellers of Prilosec for failure to allege a plausible relevant product market. American Sales Co. Inc.’s proposed class action alleges AstraZeneca AB and The Procter & Gamble Co. initiated sham patent suits in order to perpetuate an unlawful monopoly […]
Category Archives: market definition
Asparagus Seed Patent Challenge Needs to Allege Knowing Fraud to Support Antitrust Claims
June 1, 2011 – 10:23 am
District of New Jersey Judge Freda L. Wolfson dismissed antitrust claims filed by Jersey Asparagus Farms Inc. against Rutgers University concerning patents for asparagus seeds. The plaintiff alleged that the patents were invalid on the ground that Rutgers failed to disclose prior art to the PTO. Recognizing that fraudulently obtaining a patent may violate the antitrust […]
Ninth Circuit Upholds Pfizer-Wyeth Merger
May 29, 2011 – 2:11 pm
Update May 2011: The Ninth Circuit upheld the dismissal of a private challenge to the merger, holding that the plaintiff’s allegation of a pharmaceutical market was inadequate. Update October 2009: The FTC has signed off on the merger on the condition that Pfizer sell some of its animal health business. But a group of pharmacists […]
E-bay Monopolization Case Dismissed
May 28, 2011 – 11:26 am
Update May 2011: The 9th Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision. Judge Jeremy Fogel, N.D. California, has granted summary judgment to E-bay in a case alleging that it monopolized the online auction market on the ground that the plaintiffs lacked antitrust injury. The court found that the plaintiffs had presented no evidence of either restricted output […]
Ninth Circuit Refuses to Stay Medical Lab Merger
May 12, 2011 – 1:48 pm
The Ninth Circuit has upheld a district court decision refusing the FTC’s request that the court stay, pending FTC administrative proceedings, the merger of Laboratory Corp. of America and Westcliff Medical Laboratories. The FTC alleged that the merger would enable two labs to control 89% of the capitated billing market. The court agreed with a dissenting FTC commission […]
Heavy Duty Manual Transmission Verdict Upheld
May 12, 2011 – 1:35 pm
District of Delaware Judge Sue Robinson denied defendant Eaton Corp.’s motion for judgment seeking to overturn a jury verdict finding that Eaton violated Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act. The plaintiffs, transmission manufacturer competitors ZF and Meritor, argued that Eaton took anticompetitive actions to foreclose the plaintiffs from the manual transmission market. These […]
Judge’s Reversal Ends Antitrust Portion of Gaming Suit
January 17, 2011 – 10:37 am
District of Nevada Judge Robert C. Jones reversed an earlier ruling between Bally Technologies and International Gaming Technology (IGT). This new ruling effectively ends the antitrust portion of the lawsuit. The counter-claimant, Bally, alleged that the suit was part of an effort to monopolize the gaming market for certain types of machines. Bally argued that […]
Monopolization Case Against United Airlines Dismissed
October 19, 2010 – 4:12 pm
DC FDC Judge Richard Leon has granted summary judgment in favor of United Airlines in a case alleging that the airline monopolized the market in non-stop flights from San Francisco to the Washington Dulles area. In a putative class action, the plaintiff alleged that United’s rules prohibiting resale of tickets restrained competition from the secondary […]
School Supply/Calendar Bundled Discount Case to Move Forward
October 14, 2010 – 5:30 pm
Central District of CA Judge Dean Pregerson MeadWestvaco’s motion to dismiss in a case filed by Blue Sky The Color of Imagination, a competitor in the market for dated products such as calendars and datebooks. Blue Sky alleged that Mead holds about 90% of the market and that by offering bundled discounts to stores that […]
Antitrust Division Sues Credit Card Companies
October 12, 2010 – 1:40 pm
The United States Department of Justice, Antitrust Division, along with several states’ attorneys general have sued Visa, MasterCard, and American Express alleging that the card systems’ rules prohibiting merchants from offering discounts to consumers who use a particular card brand constitute unreasonable vertical agreements in restraint of trade. The Division simultaneously filed a proposed consent […]