The Seventh Circuit has affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Lake Forest Hospital in a Section 2 case filed by the Mercatus Group, which was attempting to open a competing health care facility. Lake Forest adopted a multi-pronged campaign to (1) lobby the local council not to grant Mercatus the […]
Category Archives: Noerr-Pennington
Hospital’s Campaign to Block New Entrant Protected by Noerr-Pennington Doctrine
June 3, 2011 – 8:52 am
SanDisk’s Walker Process Claim Moves Forward
May 9, 2011 – 4:06 pm
Northern District of California Judge Jeremy Fogel denied SanDisk Corp.’s motion to dismiss an antitrust class action involving Ritz Camera & Image LLC’s Walker Process claim. Ritz, who allegedly paid monopoly prices for SanDisk flash memory since 2006, alleged SanDisk enforced fraudulently procured patents. SanDisk contended that only direct competitors, not customers, could bring such claims. […]
Judge Dismisses Polymer Antitrust Case
January 28, 2011 – 1:10 pm
District of Massachusetts’s Judge Michael A. Posner granted Specialized Technology Resources Inc.’s (STR) motion to dismiss a suit brought by JPS Elastomerics Corp., accusing STR of attempting to drive JPS out of the specialized polymer market by bringing a sham claim in state court. JPS brought the suit in federal court after having lost a […]
Tax Preparation E-filing Agreement Exempt From Antitrust Scrutiny
March 18, 2010 – 1:21 pm
The Third Circuit held that an agreement among tax preparers, including Intuit, H&R Block Digital Tax Solutions, and the Free File Alliance with the IRS limiting the number of free e-filers to 50% of all taxpayers could not violate the antitrust laws because it constituted exempt petitioning of a government agency. The court rejected the plaintiffs’ claim that an […]
Georgia Federal Court Upholds Reverse Payment Drug Patent Settlement
February 27, 2010 – 9:54 pm
In a multi-district consolidation, Judge Thrash, Northern District of Georgia, ruled that reverse payment settlements between Solvay Pharmaceuticals and generic drug makers involving the testosterone supplement AndroGel were legal. The Federal Trade Commission and private plaintiffs had alleged that the settlements were anticompetitive because they constituted payments in exchange for keeping generic competition off the […]
MP3 Maker Claim Against Apple Dismissed
October 6, 2009 – 12:56 pm
In Luxpro Corp. v. Apple Inc., Western District of Arkansas Judge Harry F. Barnes handed down an order dismissing Taiwanese MP3 player maker Luxpro Corp.’s claims against Apple Inc., for attempted common law monopolization and for interfering with Luxpro’s business partners by sending letters demanding that they cease all business relations with Luxpro and filing groundless litigation. The […]
Court Upholds Jury Verdict Finding Petition in Opposition to Generic Drugs Baseless
September 21, 2009 – 3:25 pm
In Louisiana Drug Co. Inc. v. Sanofi-Aventis et al., Southern District of New York Judge Harold Baer Jr.refused to overturn a jury verdict or grant Louisiana Wholesale Drug Co. Inc. a new trial in an antitrust class action filed by the drug wholesaler. The case accused Sanofi-Aventis U.S. LLC of submitting a sham citizen petition to […]