Competition Innovation And The Microsoft Monopoly Antitrust In The Digital Marketplace

Do the antitrust laws have a place in the digital economy or are they obsolete? That is the question raised by the government's legal action against Microsoft, and it is the question this volume is designed to answer. America's antitrust laws were born out of the Industrial Revolution. Opponents of the antitrust laws argue that whatever merit the antitrust laws may have had in the past they have no place in a digital economy. Rapid innovation makes the accumulation of market power practically impossible. Markets change too quickly for antitrust actions to keep up. And antitrust remedies are inevitably regulatory and hence threaten to `regulate business'. A different view - and, generally, the view presented in this volume - is that antitrust law can and does have an important and constructive role to play in the digital economy. The software business is new, it is complex, and it is rapidly moving. Analysis of market definition, contestibility and potential competition, the role of innovation, network externalities, cost structures and marketing channels present challenges for academics, policymakers and judges alike. Evaluating consumer harm is problematic. Distinguishing between illegal conduct and brutal - but legitimate - competition is often difficult. Is antitrust analysis up to the challenge? This volume suggests that antitrust analysis `still works'. In stark contrast to the political rhetoric that has surrounded much of the debate over the Microsoft case, the articles presented here suggest neither that Microsoft is inherently bad, nor that it deserves a de facto exemption from the antitrust laws. Instead, they offer insights - for policymakers, courts, practitioners, professors and students of antitrust policy everywhere - on how antitrust analysis can be applied to the business of making and marketing computer software.

Few issues in high technology are as divisive as the current debate over competition, innovation, and antitrust. Analyzing famous examples of economic “lock-in” by dominant corporations of supposedly inferior products, this book makes the case that free markets in high technology industry deliver better products to consumers, at lower prices, without government intervention. This publication's careful scholarship, well-founded hypotheses, and refutations of previously accepted theories—extending far beyond the Microsoft case—make this publication a vital piece of understanding for the future of technology and economics.

A comprehensive account of the decades-long, multiple antitrust actions against Microsoft and an assessment of the effectiveness of antitrust law in the digital age. For more than two decades, the U.S. Department of Justice, various states, the European Commission, and many private litigants pursued antitrust actions against the tech giant Microsoft. In investigating and prosecuting Microsoft, federal and state prosecutors were playing their traditional role of reining in a corporate power intent on eliminating competition. Seen from another perspective, however, the government's prosecution of Microsoft—in which it deployed the century-old Sherman Antitrust Act in the volatile and evolving global business environment of the digital era—was unprecedented. In this book, two experts on competition policy offer a comprehensive account of the multiple antitrust actions against Microsoft—from beginning to end—and an assessment of the effectiveness of antitrust law in the twenty-first century. Gavil and First describe in detail the cases that the Department of Justice and the states initiated in 1998, accusing Microsoft of obstructing browser competition and perpetuating its Windows monopoly. They cover the private litigation that followed, and the European Commission cases decided in 2004 and 2009. They also consider broader issues of competition policy in the age of globalization, addressing the adequacy of today's antitrust laws, their enforcement by multiple parties around the world, and the difficulty of obtaining effective remedies—all lessons learned from the Microsoft cases.

Few issues in high technology are as divisive as the raging debate over competition, innovation, and antitrust. Why do certain products and technologies become dominant while others fail? Is there something about high technology that makes markets less dependable at choosing goods and services? Will the robust competition and technological advances of the past two decades continue? Or, will they be suffocated by larger firms employing monopolistic practices? Is antitrust primarily employed against monopolies to increase competition for the benefit of consumers, or is it actually a vehicle that firms use against their rivals to restrict the competitive process? This book examines these and other questions confronting high-technology markets.

This book reviews recent progress in the theory of oligopoly and market leadership and provides new results on the theory of Stackelberg competition and Nash competition with strategic investment under endogenous entry. These theories are applied to models of competition in quantities, prices and to patent races. The results are used to propose a new approach to competition policy and issues of the abuse of dominance.

Scholars explore antitrust issues as these relate to dynamic industry competition and public policy.

This book brings to bear Professor Maggiolino?s considerable skills as a comparative competition law scholar on what is perhaps the single most important competition policy issue facing us today - namely, how to use IP policy and competition policy in tandem to further both economic competition and competition in innovation. Professor Maggiolino?s book covers a large range of IP practices by dominant firms where competition law can be invoked, including "sham" litigation and product design, improper infringement actions, predation, and refusals to license. This book is well researched, well written, and completely up to date. Every serious competition law/antitrust and intellectual property scholar and practitioner should regard it as "must" reading.