The Robinson–Patman Act (RPA) of 1936 is a United States federal law that prohibits anticompetitive practices by producers, specifically price discrimination.
In the United States, antitrust law is a collection of mostly federal laws that govern the conduct and organization of businesses in order to promote economic competition and prevent unjustified monopolies. The three main U.S. antitrust statutes are the Sherman Act of 1890, the Clayton Act of 1914, and the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914. These acts serve three major functions. First, Section 1 of the Sherman Act prohibits price fixing and the operation of cartels, and prohibits other collusive practices that unreasonably restrain trade. Second, Section 7 of the Clayton Act restricts the mergers and acquisitions of organizations that may substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly. Third, Section 2 of the Sherman Act prohibits monopolization.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. The FTC shares jurisdiction over federal civil antitrust law enforcement with the Department of Justice Antitrust Division. The agency is headquartered in the Federal Trade Commission Building in Washington, DC.
The list price, also known as the manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP), or the recommended retail price (RRP), or the suggested retail price (SRP) of a product is the price at which its manufacturer notionally recommends that a retailer sell the product.
William Evan Kovacic is an American legal scholar who served as a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) from 2006 to 2011, including as its chairman from 2008 to 2009. He is a member of the Republican Party.
AMD v. Intel was a private antitrust lawsuit, filed in the United States by Advanced Micro Devices ("AMD") against Intel Corporation in June 2005.
The unfairness doctrine is a doctrine in United States trade regulation law under which the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) can declare a business practice "unfair" because it is oppressive or harmful to consumers even though the practice is not an antitrust violation, an incipient antitrust violation, a violation of the "spirit" of the antitrust laws, or a deceptive practice.
Vaccine bundling is a contractual agreement offered by some pharmaceutical companies to pediatricians, that gives a discount to doctors purchasing pediatric vaccines, but only if the physicians agree to buy the majority of their vaccines from a single manufacturer. It is a form of product bundling.
FTC v. Actavis, Inc., 570 U.S. 136 (2013), was a United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court held that the FTC could make an antitrust challenge under the rule of reason against a so-called pay-for-delay agreement, also referred to as a reverse payment patent settlement. Such an agreement is one in which a drug patentee pays another company, ordinarily a generic drug manufacturer, to stay out of the market, thus avoiding generic competition and a challenge to patent validity. The FTC sought to establish a rule that such agreements were presumptively illegal, but the Court ruled only that the FTC could bring a case under more general antitrust principles permitting a defendant to assert justifications for its actions under the rule of reason.
Google has been involved in multiple lawsuits over issues such as privacy, advertising, intellectual property and various Google services such as Google Books and YouTube. The company's legal department expanded from one to nearly 100 lawyers in the first five years of business, and by 2014 had grown to around 400 lawyers. Google's Chief Legal Officer is Senior Vice President of Corporate Development David Drummond.
FTC v. Motion Picture Advertising Service Co., 344 U.S. 392 (1953), was a 1953 decision of the United States Supreme Court in which the Court held that, where exclusive output contracts used by one company "and the three other major companies have foreclosed to competitors 75 percent of all available outlets for this business throughout the United States" the practice is "a device which has sewed up a market so tightly for the benefit of a few [that it] falls within the prohibitions of the Sherman Act, and is therefore an 'unfair method of competition' " under § 5 of the FTC Act. In so ruling, the Court extended the analysis under § 3 of the Clayton Act of requirements contracts that it made in the Standard Stations case to output contracts brought under the Sherman or FTC Acts.
North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners v. Federal Trade Commission, 574 U.S. 494 (2015), was a United States Supreme Court case on the scope of immunity from US antitrust law. The Supreme Court held that a state occupational licensing board that was primarily composed of persons active in the market it regulates has immunity from antitrust law only when it is actively supervised by the state. The North Carolina Board of Dental Examiners had relied on the Parker immunity doctrine, established by the Supreme Court case Parker v. Brown, which held that actions by state governments acting in their sovereignty did not violate antitrust law.
Software monetization is a strategy employed by software companies and device vendors to maximize the profitability of their software. The software licensing component of this strategy enables software companies and device vendors to simultaneously protect their applications and embedded software from unauthorized copying, distribution, and use, and capture new revenue streams through creative pricing and packaging models. Whether a software application is hosted in the cloud, embedded in hardware, or installed on premises, software monetization solutions can help businesses extract the most value from their software. Another way to achieve software monetization is through paid advertising and the various compensation methods available to software publishers. Pay-per-install (PPI), for example, generates revenue by bundling third-party applications, also known as adware, with either freeware or shareware applications.
Lina Maliha Khan is an American legal scholar who served from 2021 to 2025 as chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). She is also a professor at Columbia Law School. While a student at Yale Law School, she became known for her work in antitrust and competition law in the United States after publishing the influential essay "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox". President Joe Biden nominated Khan to the FTC in March 2021, and after her confirmation she became the youngest FTC chair ever in June 2021.
Federal Trade Commission v. Qualcomm Incorporated was a noted American antitrust case, in which the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) accused Qualcomm's licensing agreements as anticompetitive, mainly because their practices excluded competition and harmed competitors in the modern chip market, which according to the FTC, violated both Section 1 and Section 2 of the Sherman Act. On May 21, 2019, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California ruled in favor of the plaintiff, the FTC, by alleging that Qualcomm had indeed violated the federal antitrust laws by (1) refusing to license its patents to direct competitors, in its relevant product market (2) by placing an extra fee on rival chip sales through its licensing of its patent, and (3) by entering in an exclusive business deal with Apple from 2011 to 2013. The case was seen as controversial when the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided to unanimously reverse the decision of the district court by arguing that the FTC failed to prove through its rule of reason analysis that Qualcomm's policies have a considerable negative effect towards the consumer in the CDMA and cellular chips market.
Federal Trade Commission v. Meta Platforms, Inc. is an ongoing antitrust court case brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against Facebook parent company Meta Platforms. The lawsuit alleges that Meta has accumulated monopoly power via anti-competitive mergers, with the suit centering on the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.
The New Brandeis or neo-Brandeis movement is an antitrust academic and political movement in the United States which argues that excessively centralized private power is dangerous for economical, political and social reasons. Initially called hipster antitrust by its detractors, also referred to as the "Columbia school" or "Neo-Progressive antitrust," the movement advocates that United States antitrust law return to a broader concern with private power and its negative effects on market competition, income inequality, consumer rights, unemployment, and wage growth.
Jonathan Seth Kanter is an American lawyer who served as Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) from 2021 to 2024, during the administration of President Joe Biden. Kanter previously worked as an antitrust attorney at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and in private practice.
United States v. Google LLC is an ongoing federal antitrust case brought by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) against Google LLC on October 20, 2020. The suit alleges that Google has violated the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 by illegally monopolizing the search engine and search advertising markets, most notably on Android devices, as well as with Apple and mobile carriers.
United States v. Google LLC is an ongoing federal antitrust case brought by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) against Google LLC on January 24, 2023. The suit accuses Google of illegally monopolizing the advertising technology (adtech) market in violation of sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. The suit is separate from the first antitrust case launched in 2020 that accuses Google of an illegal monopoly in the search engine market.
