ANTITRUST ENFORCEMENT ANDHIGH-TECHNOLOGY MARKETS

William J. Baer, Director, Bureau of Competition, Federal Trade Commission, and David A. Balto, Assistant Director, Office of Policy and Evaluation, Bureau of Competition, Federal Trade Commission

1/01/2005
(Original Publish Date: 1999)

The application of the antitrust laws to high-tech industries is a timely subject. Both the Federal Trade Commission ("Commission") and the Antitrust Division ("Antitrust Division") of the Department of Justice have recently brought a number of cases, in both the merger and nonmerger areas, involving firms in high-tech markets. Although the Microsoft and Intel cases have engendered most of the public's attention, they are only the most visible examples of recent federal antitrust enforcement involving high-tech products. Recent FTC antitrust actions challenged patent pools used to fix prices, frauds on the patent procurement process, abuses of standard setting processes, mergers that would result in an anticompetitive accumulation of power over innovation markets, and other anticompetitive practices that would deny consumers the important benefits of innovation.