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The Pros And Cons Of Intellectual Property Law

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The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) defines anti-competitive practices as the many ways firms restrict inter-firm competition to maintain or to increase their relative market position and profits without necessarily providing goods and services at a lower price or at a higher quality. The American Federal Trade Commission states that anti-competitive practices include activities such as price fixing, group boycotts and exclusionary exclusive dealings. These activities are generally grouped as agreements between competitors (horizontal conduct) and monopolization (single firm conduct).

In order to explore the extent to which exercise of intellectual property rights may be considered anti-competitive, the definition must …show more content…

The cause of the tensions has been traced to the objectives of both the laws. In definition, IPR gives the owners an exclusive right to behave in a particular way, when competition law does everything in its power to keep the markets open. So then tension rises at which point does IPR become harmful and competition law should intervene and override IPR?

Lionel Bentley and Brad Sherman have, in their book; "Intellectual Property Law” acknowledged that indeed there is tension between competition law and intellectual property law. While discussing the effect of competition law on the exploitation of copyright , they state that a copyright entitles an owner to use the property in a manner which he or she so wishes and that the copyright owner cannot be compelled to apply their rights in a particular manner. This is the exclusivity of a right. They, however, acknowledge that there are circumstances in which competition law may require a property owner to make available the right for use by the public. They state that operators in dominant positions have a special responsibility not to allow their conduct to impair

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