New Roles for Antitrust Laws


Intersection of Antitrust and the Intellectual Property Laws

Timothy J. Muris, Chairman of the FTC, pointed out recently that the intersection between the antitrust laws and what we can generally refer to as intellectual property protection is at the forefront of antitrust enforcement today.

The Hatch-Waxman Act was enacted by Congress to encourage the development of generic drugs to compete with the pioneer drugs. An unintended consequence of that Act is to provide incentives for pioneer drug companies to pay the generic to stay out of the market. These agreements are at the core of recent antitrust enforcement efforts.

Hospital Mergers Revisited

Second, again Chairman Muriss point the FTC is going to take a retrospective look at hospital mergers that the FTC and DOJ have been relatively unsuccessful in stopping. Muris wants to see whether the results of those decisions have been anticompetitive. Although it may be difficult, the government is never stopped from revisiting an anticompetitive condition, particularly a newly created one originally opposed by the government.

The efforts to stop a merger before the merger occurs are prophylactic, and you have to make all kinds of econometric projections as to what is going to happen in the future. So now that all that has happened, Muris is saying, lets go back and see what really happened . The effect of these two enforcement efforts likely will shape antitrust laws in the future.

Lewis Noonberg's primary area of practice is in antitrust and commercial litigation and counseling , particularly in the financial services, health care, food processing, manufacturing and real estate industries. He has appeared as lead counsel in major antitrust cases in district courts and courts of appeal throughout the United States. He serves as national trade regulation counsel for several clients in various industries, as well as representing and counseling clients involved in federal and state antitrust investigations.

Mr. Noonberg has taught various courses at the Georgetown University Law Center and University of Maryland School of Law, including Antitrust Law and Antitrust and Health Care Law, and has lectured extensively in continuing professional education courses on antitrust law. He has also lectured at The Johns Hopkins University on business law.

Mr. Noonberg served as an assistant attorney general of Maryland for two years , representing various state agencies including the Maryland Insurance Division. He served as chair of Piper Rudnick's Antitrust & Trade Regulation practice group for over 15 years.

He received his LL.B. from the University of Maryland School of Law in 1962 and his A.B. from Dartmouth College in 1959.




Inside the Minds Stuff - Inside the Minds. Winning Antitrust Strategies
Inside the Minds Stuff - Inside the Minds. Winning Antitrust Strategies
ISBN: N/A
EAN: N/A
Year: 2004
Pages: 102

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