The Paul, Weiss Antitrust Practice advises clients on a full range of global antitrust matters, including antitrust regulatory clearance, government investigations, private litigation, and counseling and compliance. The firm represents clients before antitrust and competition authorities in the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and other jurisdictions around the world.
Department of Justice Gives Antitrust Guidance to Standards Development Organizations
November 8, 2006 Full PDF
Last week, the United States Department of Justice issued a business review letter that provides important guidance to standards development organizations ("SDOs") that have or wish to adopt certain disclosure policies regarding the licensing of essential patents. As a general matter, any discussions among competitors of royalty rates or other terms or conditions on the licensing of patents raises significant antitrust issues. Among other things, any such discussions might be taken as evidence of collusion in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act.